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LIBRARY
UN!VER3»TV OF CALIFORNIA gANTA CRUZ
|)ublitations
OF THE
lisforical fjomtg of
LIFE AND WRITINGS
OF
JOHN DICKINSON.
VOL. I.
M E M O I
nPORICAL SOCIE
OF
i SYLVAN
MEMOIRS
OF THE
HISTORICAL SOCIETY
OF
PENNSYLVANIA.
VOL. XIII.
PHILADELPHIA:
PUBLICATION FUND OF
THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA,
No. 1300 LOCUST STREET.
1891.
"The Trustees of the Publication Fund of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania" have published ten volumes of Memoirs of the Society, viz. :
Vol. V. The History of Braddock's Expedition.
Vol. VI. Contributions to American History.
Vol. VII. Record of Upland and Denny's Journal.
Vol. I. Second Edition, with Notes.
Vol. VIII. Minutes of Defence of Philadelphia, 1814-1815.
Vol IX. Correspondence of Penn and Logan, Vol. I.
Vol. X. " " " Vol. 2.
Vol. XI. History of New Sweden, by Israel Acrelius.
Vol. XII. Heckewelder's History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations.
Vol. XIII. Life and Writings of John Dickinson, Vol. i.
Besides the above, the Trustees have issued fourteen volumes of " The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography," a Quarterly Journal, devoted to American His- tory, and especially that of Pennsylvania.
The investments held by the Trustees of the Fund now amount to over thirty-two thousand dollars, the interest of which is applied to publishing. By the payment of twenty-five dollars, any one may become entitled to receive, during his or her life, all the publications issued at the expense of the Fund. Libraries so subscribing are entitled to receive the same for the term of twenty years.
The Society desire it to be understood that they are not answerable for any opinions or observations that may appear in their publications : the Editors of the several works being alone responsible for the same.
BRINTON COXE, •»
AUBREY H. SMITH, > Trustees.
CHARLES HARE HUTCHINSON, )
THE LIFE AND TIMES
OF
JOHN DICKINSON
173 2 I 808.
"Whatever harmonies of Law
The growing world assume, Thy work is thine, — the single note From that deep chord which Hampden smote Will vibrate to the doom."
TENNYSON : England and America in 1782.
PREPARED AT THE REQUEST OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA,
BY
CHARLES J. STILLE, LL.D.
PHILADELPHIA:
THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 1891.
Copyright, 1891, by THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
The Trustees of The Publication Fund desire it to be understood that they are not answerable for the opinions or observations that may be expressed in articles under the names or initials of the contributors.
PREFACE.
THE Historical Society of Pennsylvania proposes to print a fuller and more complete edition of the polit- ical writings of JOHN DICKINSON than that which was published under his own supervision in Wilmington in 1 80 1. That edition of his works was in many respects an incomplete one. Many of the important State papers of which he was the author, and all of his letters, which in many respects were his most charac- teristic productions, are not to be found in it. It is proposed in the forthcoming edition to supply as far as possible this deficiency. I have been requested by the Society to prepare a memoir of Mr. Dickinson as an introduction to this new edition of his works.
The story of Mr. Dickinson's life forms an important part of the history of Pennsylvania. From the year 1760 until his term of office as President of the Su- preme Executive Council expired, in 1783, Mr. Dickin- son was probably the most conspicuous person in the service of the State. So, also, from the meeting of the Stamp-Act Congress, in 1765, until his death, in 1808, Mr. Dickinson was a prominent figure in our national history. He was the first to advocate re- sistance to the ministerial plan of taxation on consti- tutional grounds. For more than a year after the
iii
PREFACE.
enforcement of the Boston Port Bill, according to Mr. Bancroft, and for a much longer period, in the opinion of his contemporaries, " he controlled the counsels of the country." He had the courage to maintain that the Declaration of Independence was inopportune, and in the Convention which framed the Constitution of the United States he took a leading part.
The record of Mr. Dickinson's services is not to be found in an elaborate biography prepared by a friendly hand. Unlike his great colleagues, Franklin, Jefferson, the Adamses, Jay, Madison, and olher worthies of the Revolution, in whose correspondence Mr. Dickinson always appears as a man of commanding influence when he advocated any system of national policy, the memory of the illustrious author of the " Farmer's Letters" has been kept alive only by brief sketches of his life and by the memorable State papers which he prepared during the Revolution at the request of the Continental Congress.
It is a matter of regret, not to say of reproach, that no one has hitherto undertaken fully to portray the public career of this remarkable man, and to explain his conduct and motives by reference to the peculiar position of the country, and especially of this State, during the crisis of the Revolution.
In undertaking the work which has been assigned to me, I have been led to discuss many historical questions which may appear at first to have little connection with Mr. Dickinson's life and services. But, according to the plan I have adopted, it was essential to a proper understanding of both that some fair account of his environment should be given.
PREFACE.
For a long time the papers of Mr. Dickinson were preserved with jealous care by his family. But during the years which have elapsed since his death many have disappeared, and others are scattered beyond hope of recovery. Still, documents of priceless value to the historian remain among them, and I am greatly in- debted to the kindness of Miss F. A. LOGAN, one of the descendants of Mr. Dickinson, for an opportunity to examine the large collection of original papers in her possession. Indeed, I am bound to say that if any new light is thrown upon Dickinson's career in my book, its source was found in my researches among these papers.
I desire to draw special attention to the masterly argument of DR. GEORGE H. MOORE, late librarian of the New York Historical Society, defending Mr. Dick- inson's claim to the authorship of that wonderful State paper, "The Declaration of the Causes of taking up Arms," adopted by Congress in July, 1775, against that made on behalf of Mr. Jefferson by Randolph, Tucker, Randall, Parton, and Bancroft. By Dr. Moore's kind permission that portion of his paper which refers es- pecially to this controversy has been reprinted in the Appendix.
I am under great obligations to THOMAS McKEAN, ESQ., the great-grandson of GOVERNOR McKEAN, and to WILLIAM M. TILGHMAN, ESQ., the grandson of ED- WARD TILGHMAN, for placing at my disposal a valua- ble portion of the correspondence of their ancestors during the Revolution. My thanks are also due to MR. PAUL LEICESTER FORD, to whom has been assigned the editorial supervision and collation of the political and
PREFACE.
miscellaneous writings of Mr. Dickinson which the Historical Society proposes shortly to publish.
I must also express my thanks to my friend MR. F. D. STONE, the librarian of the Historical Society, for his constant aid during the progress of my work. His minute and accurate knowledge of the events of Revolutionary history has been of the greatest service to me.
January, 1891.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.— (Pages 9-20.)
MR. DICKINSON'S EARLY YEARS. PAGE
The Dickinson Family . 9
Its Home in Maryland. .......... 12
Dickinson's Education ........... 14
His Study of the Law 19
CHAPTER I L— (Pages 21-34.)
HIS LEGAL TRAINING IN THE TEMPLE.
The Inns of Court 22
Nature of the Instruction .......... 23
His Fellow-Students 24
Effect of his Training in the English Common Law . . . . . 25
American Students in the Inns of Court ....... 26
Few New England Students there 26
Results in New England of a Different Legal Education . . . .27
The Clergy, and not the Lawyers, Rulers there ...... 30
The Practice of the Law in New England 33
CHAPTER III.— (/^.r 35-64.)
PROPRIETARY GOVERNMENT IN PENNSYLVANIA.
Mr. Dickinson at the Bar .......... 36
His Success as a Lawyer 37
He enters Public Life 38
Pennsylvania Assembly .......... 39
Discontent with the Proprietaries ......... 40
Franklin and Dickinson .......... 41
Nature of the Dispute 44
Dickinson's Argument ........... 46
Sketch of the History of Pennsylvania prior to 1755 .... 46-52
New Causes of Dispute with the Proprietaries ..... 53-56
Galloway's Resolutions .......... 59
Petition to the King ........... 60
Speeches of Dickinson and Galloway 63
vii
viii CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IV.— (Pages ^-i 14.)
THE FORERUNNERS OF THE REVOLUTION.
PAGE Dickinson and the " Sugar Act" ......... 66
His Views concerning the " Stamp Act" ..... -67
Stamp Act Congress -72
Stamp Act repealed 74
The Act levying Duties on Glass, Paints, and Tea passed by Parliament . 79
The " Farmer's Letters" So
The Influence of these Letters 81
Argument of the " Farmer's Letters" .84
Obduracy of the Ministry . . 86
The Letters teach Constitutional Resistance .90
They give great Offence in England ........ 93
Circular Letter of Massachusetts 94
Troops sent to Boston 96
Dickinson's Advice no longer followed in Boston 98
Samuel Adams and Dickinson ......... 101
Boston's Message to Philadelphia . . . . . . . .105
Dickinson's Opinion . . .106
Reed, Thomson, and Mifflin in Consultation with Dickinson . . .108
Dr. Smith's Letter 108
Pennsylvanian Form of Resistance no
Movement in Pennsylvania's First Convention .112
Instructions to the Assembly drawn by Dickinson 112
John Adams and Popular Government . . . . . . . . 1 1 3
CHAPTER V.— (Pages 115-200.) THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.
The Quaker Sentiment at this Time 115
Pennsylvania Assembly elects Delegates to Congress 117
Sketch of the Delegates 119
Obstacles to Armed Resistance . .122
Puritans and Quakers .124
Want of Union in Pennsylvania . . . . . . . . . 1 28
High Character of the Pennsylvania Delegates . . . . . .130
Their Intercourse with those from New England . . . . . .132
First Meeting of the Continental Congress . . . . . . .134
Different Propositions . . . 135
Condition of Boston . . .138
Dickinson's Position . . . .140
First Petition to the King and other Papers drawn up by him . . .142 Dickinson's Opinion of Washington 148
CONTENTS. ix
PAGE
Pennsylvania ratifies the Acts of Congress ....... 149
The Governor suggests a Separate Petition 150
Pennsylvania refuses to desert the other Colonies 151
Military Force raised ........... 152
The " Associators" 153~S^>
Second Petition to the King 157
Opposed by John Adams . . . . . . . . . .158
Declaration of the Causes of taking up Arms . . . . . .161
Active Resistance in Pennsylvania under Dickinson's Control . . .163 Nature of Allegiance . . . . . . . . . . .164
The Assembly of 1775 — Their Instructions 166
Efforts of New England Delegates to destroy the Pennsylvania Charter . 170 Congress meets in January, 1776 — Massachusetts Delegates . . . .172 Dickinson Colonel of First Battalion of Associators . . . . . 175 Efforts in the State to supersede the Assembly and the Charter . . 177-83
Resolutions of Congress May 10-15 • • .178
The Calling of a Convention — Usurpation of Power . . . . .185
Virginia recommends Independence ........ 187
Instructions of Delegates rescinded . . . . . . . .188
Assembly left without a Quorum . . . . . . . . .189
Congress still trusts Dickinson . . . . . . . . .191
He opposes the Declaration as Inopportune ...... 193-96
The Consistency of his Views . . . . . . . . .198
CHAPTER VI.— (Pages 201-252.)
MR. DICKINSON'S CAREER AFTER THE DECLARATION OF INDE- PENDENCE.
Mr. Dickinson in Command of the Philadelphia Associators . . . 200 His Conceptions of his Duty as a Soldier ....... 204
His Services during the Campaign in Jersey ....... 205
Not re-elected as a Delegate to Congress 206
Member of the First Assembly under the Constitution of 1776 . . . 207 Regards this Assembly as an Illegal Body ....... 208
Proposes that a New Convention shall be called ...... 209
Dickinson withdraws from the Assembly ....... 209
Letters of Charles Thomson and Dr. Rush on his Withdrawal . . .211 Dickinson retires to Delaware . . . . . . . . .212
Becomes a Private in the Delaware Militia . . . . . . .213
Services at the Battle of the Brandy wine . . . . . . .214
Sent as a Delegate to Congress by Delaware in 1779 . . . . .217
The French Alliance and Spanish Mediation . . . . . .219
Dickinson's Address to the States ........ 220
Instructions to Commissioners drafted by him . . . . . .221
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Elected President of Delaware in 1781 ....... 222
Elected President of Pennsylvania in 1782 ....... 223
Anarchical Condition of the State ....... 224-26
Organization of the Government ......... 228
Dickinson attacked by VALERIUS . ........ 230
Political libels in those days 232-35
Charges made by VALERIUS 236
Mr. Dickinson's Character and Vindication 237-40
Revolt of the Troops at Lancaster 244
Dickinson's Account of the Revolt 246
The Wyoming Troubles — Dickinson's Position . 247-51 Dickinson as an Admiralty Judge 252
CHAPTER V II.— (-fttf» 253-301.)
HIS SERVICES IN THE CONVENTION WHICH FRAMED THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.
Necessity for a Revision of the Articles of Confederation .... 253
Convention at Annapolis, Dickinson President . . . . . . 255
Convention meets at Philadelphia in May, 1787 ...... 258
Sketch of his Work in that Convention ...... 258-60
Mode of electing Senators . . ..... . . .261
Adopted at Mr. Dickinson's Suggestion ....... 263
Other Topics discussed by him ......... 264
Ratification of the Constitution . . . . . . . .265
Letters of " Fabius" — First Series ........ 266
Contrasted with " The Federalist" ........ 268
Dickinson's Historical Illustrations . . . . . . . 270-72
Explains Theory of the Power of the Senate ...... 273
Washington's Opinion of the Letters of " Fabius" ..... 274
Controversy about the Meaning of the Constitution after its Adoption . . 276 Dickinson urged as a Candidate for the Senate from Delaware . . . 278 He changes his Political Views ......... 279
Effect of the French Revolution ......... 280
Different Schools of Democrats ......... 282
Jefferson's Dread of Centralization ...... . 284
Letters on Federal " Delusions" ......... 286
Correspondence between Jefferson and Dickinson ...... 288
Jefferson's Theory of Government . ..... . . 289
Cession of Louisiana ...... . . . . .291
Jay's Treaty ............. 295
Dickinson and Jefferson contrasted . . ...... 298
Dickinson changes his Opinion on French Affairs ..... 300
CONTENTS. xi
CHAPTER VIII.— (P^ej 302-338.)
MR. DICKINSON IN PRIVATE AND DOMESTIC LIFE.
PAGE
Summary of his Career .......... 303
His Domestic Virtues 306
Becomes a Visitor at Fairhill 308
The Norris Family 308
Isaac Norris the Elder and Isaac Norris the Younger .... 309-10
Fairhill described . . . . . . . . . . .311
Mr. Dickinson is married to Miss Mary Norris . . . . . .316
His Modesty and other Characteristics . . . . . . . .31?
His Benevolent Undertakings — Dickinson College ..... 326
The Great Estates of the Norris Family settled in the Male Line by Mr.
Dickinson's Wife . . . . -331
His Kindness to the Family of Chief- Justice Read ..... 333 Portrait of Mr. Dickinson by Mr. Read and by Mrs. Logan .... 335 His Death — Proceedings in Congress and Letter of the President thereon . 336 Horace Binney on the Attitude of Philadelphia towards her Great Men . 338
APPENDIX.
I. Stamp Act Resolutions 339
II. Charles Thomson's Statement ........ 340
III. The Moravian Indian Converts and the Quakers .... 352
IV. Dr. George H. Moore on the Authorship of the Declaration of the
Causes of taking up Arms ........ 353
V. Mr. Dickinson's Vindication ....... 364
VI. Draft of Instructions to Commissioners for Negotiating a Treaty of
Peace 414
VII. VALERIUS and General Armstrong 421
VIII. Draft of an Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery in Delaware . 424
THE LIFE AND TIMES
OF
JOHN DICKINSON
CHAPTER I.
•
MR. DICKINSON'S EARLY YEARS.
THE family name of Dickinson has been for many generations well known in various parts of the country. Those who bear it in the Middle and Southern States appear to recognize as their common ancestor CHARLES DICKINSON, who died in London in 1653. He left three sons, all of whom were Quakers, who came to Vir- ginia in 1654 to escape imprisonment at home as non- conformists. From these three sons are descended the Dickinson families who are found throughout the Southern States and in certain parts of Pennsylvania.
About the year 1 630 a certain Nathaniel Dickinson arrived in Salem in Massachusetts, and a few years later Philemon, both of whom are said to have suffered for their faith (which was of a violent type of Puritan- ism) at the hands of the High Commission. Both of them are supposed to have been related to the Virginia Dickinsons, although the connection has not been clearly traced. They were the founders of many families in Western Massachusetts, who, like their Virginia cousins, i 9
THE DICKINSON FAMILY.
were the ancestors of men who served well and faith- fully the church and state in their day and generation. From them came also, among others of distinction, such men as Jonathan Dickinson, the first president of the college at Princeton, and Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant, a lawyer of great eminence, attorney-general of Pennsylvania in 1778. This branch of the Dickin- son family were Presbyterians, as the Virginia branch were Quakers.
There is a legendary account of the renown achieved by the English ancestors of this family as soldiers, but we need not concern ourselves with it here. What is, however, well settled is this, that for many generations before the Dickinsons came to this country they be- longed to that middle class of English society jWho, whether as landholders possessed of moderate estates, or as men engaged in London in trade, grew to in- creasing importance in their influence upon public af- fairs after the Reformation. Men of this class, it need not be said, have had more to do with shaping the destinies of England in modern times than any other. When their principles in religion or in politics became too advanced to permit of their being reduced with safety to practice in their own country, they turned to the West and emigrated to America. Once here, they fully developed their opinions, and the habits and tra- ditions of those who formed them added much to the force and strength of the country during our Colonial and Revolutionary era. There was one peculiarity by which almost all the early English emigrants were distinguished, — they were all non-conformists. They differed, it is true, like the different branches of the
THEIR RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS. «
Dickinson family, in their forms of dissent. One was a Quaker, another a Puritan or an Independent, and a third a Presbyterian. Still, they all present types of that discontent with the arbitrary government of the Stuarts, then widely prevailing, which was felt so keenly by many enlightened and conscientious Protestants in England during the seventeenth century. They were all evidently (from special causes of various kinds) frondeurs, — that is, were so dissatisfied with the existing government in state as well as in church, and so hope- less of changing it, that they preferred to build up new homes in America to remaining under certain disabili- ties in their old ones. As most of the English emi- grants of those days belonged to families in comfortable worldly circumstances, we can form some idea of the strength of the convictions which supported them in the hazardous enterprise upon which they embarked.
These convictions, it must be remembered, formed not only the basis of the character of the first settlers, but that of their descendants also, and by tracing the influence of heredity we can readily explain much in the acts of those descendants in all the Colonies which it would be otherwise difficult to understand. Perhaps in these inherited tendencies we may be able in the story of Dickinson to perceive that although the family differed widely in its opinions, one part advocating a Quaker theory of government and another that of the Puritan in church and state, yet both were only differ- ent methods of protesting against similar abuses of ar- bitrary power. There was a Puritan way, and a Quaker way, possibly even a Presbyterian way, of remedying evils in church and state, and of these different ways
12 DICKINSON'S HOME IN MARYLAND.
the history of the different branches of this Dickinson family provides us with typical specimens.
But we have now to do only with the immediate family of John Dickinson. It would seem that the three brothers who came to Virginia in 1654 did not remain long in that Colony. Whether they found the penalties for non-conformity there as severe, and the consequent liability of Quakers to suffer for celebrating their worship in public as great, as in England, it is not easy to say. It is ascertained, however, that one at least of the brothers, Walter, the immediate ancestor of John Dickinson, removed in 1659 to Talbot County, on the eastern shore of Maryland. He there settled a plantation which he called Crosia-dore. The family remained Quakers for more than a century, leading the life of Maryland planters. There must have been something peculiarly attractive to its owner in this beautiful spot on the shores of the Chesapeake, for from the day of its settlement until the present hour, a period of over two centuries and a half, Crosia-dore has always been the home of the same Dickinson family, the present owner and occupant being in the direct line of descent from the original proprietor. That any family in this country of unrest and change should have re- tained and occupied the same homestead for more than two hundred and forty years is in itself so unusual as to seem almost marvellous. This hereditary attachment to the paternal acres and the fondness of the family for a country life have had a deep significance in its history. To this attachment we may look as the source of many characteristics which went to form the manly, indepen- dent, and self-reliant qualities by which so many of the
INFLUENCE OF LIFE IN THE COUNTRY. '3
members of the family, and especially John Dickinson himself, were particularly distinguished. It has been found here, as everywhere else, that, before the Revo- lution, educated men who lived in the country, who had the care of family landed estates, and who were bred as farmers, were more conspicuous in what may be called the higher public life of the time, and wielded greater influ- ence on public questions, than any other class of society. Residence in the country and a farmer's life have been here, as in England, not only the " classic diversion of a statesman's care," but the nursery also of unyielding devotion to one's home and a true patriotism. In the Middle and Southern States particularly, the men who prepared the country for the great Revolutionary crisis were those who had the education, the tastes, and the leisure of gentlemen-farmers. Whatever may have been their public career, however great their achieve- ments in the service of the state, they always gladly turned from the excitement and turmoil of large bodies of contending men to the quiet of their own rural homes. The love of a country life, with the opportunities it gave for study and calm reflection, was a predominant trait in the character of many of our most conspicuous states- men of the Colonial and Revolutionary era whose names will readily occur to all, and in no one was it more marked than in John Dickinson himself, who was proud to be called a farmer, and to whose learned leisure we owe the best exposition ever made of the relations of a metropolis to its colonies. He could find no more appropriate a title for his great work than that of " Farmer's Letters."
At Crosia-dore, on the eighth of November, 1732,
DICKINSON'S EDUCATION.
was born John Dickinson. He was the second son of Samuel Dickinson, the grandson of the first proprie- tor of the estate, and of Mary Cadwalader, his second wife, sister of Dr. Thomas Cadwalader, of Philadelphia. Samuel Dickinson had been bred to the law, and in the year 1740 he removed from Maryland to Delaware, where he had purchased a large estate in Kent County, near Dover. Here, shortly afterwards, he was appointed judge of the county court, and here he remained during the rest of his useful and honorable life.1 Probably one of the motives for his removal from Maryland was his desire to procure for his children the advantages of a better kind of education than could be had in that colony. He is said to have intended at one time to send all his sons to England, in order that they might receive the training of the best public schools there, as was then the practice with many of the planters in the Southern Colonies. But, having lost two of his children by the small-pox, he decided not to part with those that remained, but to seek for them the means of the best liberal education which the Colonies at that time af- forded. To do so, in the only way in which it was pos- sible in the condition of Colonial society at that period, it was necessary that his boys should be placed under the care of a private tutor, who should possess far
1 He died in 1760. It is curious to mark the hereditary attachment of this family to the land. Samuel Dickinson's first purchase in Kent County was made in 1715, and embraced a tract of thirteen hundred acres. This estate was added to by his descendants, until a few years ago they were the largest land-owners in Kent County, possessing more than three thousand acres. — Scharf s "History of Delaware" p. 1079.
COLLEGES IN COLONIAL TIMES. *5
higher attainments than are now required of such a functionary. In the early Colonial days there was no general system for the training of those who sought a liberal education. There were, it is true, three educa- tional establishments called colleges to be found on the continent, — Harvard, Yale, and William and Mary. But in all three the course of studies was very limited, and in the first two, at least, it was designed chiefly for the training of Congregational clergymen. Thus, at Har- vard, the first professor of that college, the Hollis Pro- fessor of Divinity, was appointed in 1721, and down to the beginning of the nineteenth century only two additional professors were appointed, a professor of mathematics and a professor of Hebrew. The regular instruction was given by tutors.1 It was not until Dr. Smith established at the College of Philadelphia, in 1 756, the first graded course of studies of a higher kind ever pursued in an American college, that a young man here had an opportunity of laying broad and deep the foundations of a liberal culture, such as he would have enjoyed had he gone abroad for that purpose. The great want of the time in those days, deeply felt by all cultivated men, was an opportunity to give to their sons a good scholastic training.2
xSee Report of Overseers of Harvard College, 1869.
9 One of the most suggestive passages in the Memoir of Rev. Henry M. Muhlenberg is that in which he describes the necessity which compelled him to send his three boys, all at one time, to receive their education in Halle, in Germany. He could find no institutions here in which they could be trained as he himself had been in his native country. These three boys, it may be added, did credit to their German education. They all held in after-life the highest public stations. German learning, fidelity, and honesty were firmly grafted
1 6 SCHOOLS IN THE COLONIES.
There were, it is true, in the Middle Colonies a few schools where instruction of a more thorough, if not a more comprehensive, kind could be had than is common now. These schools were generally in the charge of Scotch-Irish school-masters, whose success in imparting at least a thorough grammatical knowledge of the Latin language, and whose proficiency in the system they practised of teaching the other branches, were plainly discernible in the career of many men who became prominent in the Revolution. Such was the school at New London, in Chester County, of which Dr. Allison, the famous Latinist, was head-master, where George Read, Benjamin Rush, Thomas McKean, Hugh Wil- liamson, and John Ewing, among others, were educated. The system of these old-fashioned school-masters was undoubtedly very narrow, so far as the mere acquisition of knowledge was concerned, but it had the inestimable advantage of training the pupils to think clearly and logically and to cultivate their judgment.
When we reflect how much importance is attached at this day to special technical learning, it is hard to understand how men who had gained so little of this kind of knowledge could do so much hard and fruit- ful work as they did in their generation. Science, which is now looked upon as the basis of all real and valuable education, was then not taught even in its elementary branches ; indeed, applied science was a term then entirely unknown. Men were then trained to think and to reason, and the mere acquisition of knowledge was hardly regarded as an object of liberal
on the native American stock. See Dr. Mann's "Life and Times of Muhlenberg," p. 399.
MR. DICKINSON'S TUTOR.
education.1 The old plan had its advantages, and perhaps the pendulum now swings too far to the other side. Be that as it may, in order that we may under- stand and appreciate the mental characteristics of the men of that generation we must understand that they all passed through a stereotyped process of which the ancient languages and the mathematics formed the basis. It is true that the days are now past when men built their education upon the humanities. They were justified in pursuing the classical system, because it was the model system approved by the teachings of that great guide — Experience. This was the system which from the days of the Renaissance had been always recognized and universally adopted as the true method of liberal culture.
The father of John Dickinson had no choice, there- fore, when he adopted this system as the proper one for the training of his son, and he had hardly more choice in those early days when he confided that train- ing to a private tutor. His choice of a tutor, although it seemed to involve a good deal of risk, proved in the end very fortunate. The person selected was William Killen, a young Irishman, who had come to Dover when only fifteen years old and had been received into the family of Mr. Dickinson as a homeless stranger. Mr. Killen was but ten years older than his son, and under the direction of this young tutor his zeal for learning was so quickened that he soon acquired not only familiarity with the language of the classical
1 It is observable in Mr. Jefferson's Letters, written about the beginning of this century, that he complains of the " ignorance of science ' ' among his countrymen, especially in New England.
2
1 8 RESULTS OF HIS TRAINING.
authors, but also a thorough knowledge of their pecu- liarities of style. He cultivated that style as a model of the proper mode of treating a subject, and the effect of this training is observable in all that Mr. Dickinson wrote during his long life. Any one who is at all familiar with his writings must have observed that his style is very unlike that of the pretentious, " Johnsonese," and ore rotundo manner of writing which was fashionable with English and American writers of the eighteenth century. It is remarkable, as we shall see, for its elegance, simplicity, directness, and clearness, qualities which were not conspicuous among men of his own generation who wrote in the English language.
This Mr. Killen must have been a man of rare merit, for while he inspired the genius of young Dick- inson he was preparing himself to take an active part in the Revolutionary crisis in Delaware. After his admission to the bar, Mr. Killen soon acquired a large professional practice, and in due time he became Chief Justice and Chancellor of Delaware. It is certainly not a little remarkable in the history of teaching that, under such instruction in the classics as was given by him, Dickinson should not only have early imbibed a love of classical literature, but that his studies should have taught him that comprehensiveness of view and those forms of expression which are characteristics of the ancient classical authors. If there be any truth in the saying "Le style, cestThomme" it was true of Dick- inson. It would be difficult to over-estimate the power which this style, derived from those who wrote in what is erroneously called a "dead language," enabled him
THE STUDY OF THE LAW.
to exercise in the political controversies in which he was engaged.
In 1750, when John Dickinson was eighteen years old, his mind was considered sufficiently mature to begin the study of the law. He was entered as a stu- dent in the office of John Moland, Esq., who seems to have been the most conspicuous member of the Phila- delphia bar after the death of Andrew Hamilton in 1741. This Mr. Moland had been bred in the Temple, was commissioned as the king's attorney in Pennsyl- vania, and was appointed a Provincial Councillor in 1759. The bar of this city had not at that time the reputation for learning and ability which it afterwards acquired. Secretary Peters in one of his letters speaks with scant respect of the lawyers of those days, "all of whom," says he, "except Francis and Moland, are persons of no knowledge, and, I had almost said, of no principle."
Mr. Moland seems to have attracted to his office many pupils who afterwards became eminent. Among Dickinson's fellow-students were George Read, after- wards Chief Justice of Delaware, Samuel Wharton, and others, all of whom attained a high position in the profession. The study of the law, like the study of most other subjects, has greatly changed in its character since the time of Dickinson. The student in those days was not seduced, as he now is, by the luminous exposition of the English common law by Blackstone, to believe that he is about to pursue an exact science. He was made to plunge at once into the intricate mazes of the common law, — " the perfection of human reason," as he found it strangely called, — and to find
20 THE STUDY OF THE LAW.
his way as he best could under the guidance of the venerable Coke and the Year-Books. Such a plan had at least an advantage for those who were not dis- couraged by formidable obstacles at the outset, as it undoubtedly strengthened and disciplined the mind in its attempt to overcome the difficulties which attend the effort to master the peculiarities of the highly artificial system of the common law. What was the history of the progress of Mr. Dickinson's studies under such a training we cannot, unfortunately, tell ; but there are reasons to believe, from what we know of his future career, that he then laid by hard work the foundation of that knowledge of the common law, and especially of that great familiarity with English history, and Eng- lish constitutional law as it affected the relations of the metropolis with the Colonies, by which he was distin- guished beyond all his contemporaries. We think that we can trace to these early studies Mr. Dickin- son's ideal conception of political liberty, — from which in all his controversies he never wavered, — that it was a liberty guarded and controlled by law. Mr. Dick- inson was a great favorite with his fellow-students. His letters to them are written in a vein of pleasantry which seems somewhat out of keeping with the pre- cocious gravity of his character.
CHAPTER II.
HIS LEGAL TRAINING IN THE TEMPLE.
MR. DICKINSON prevailed on his father to allow him to go to London in 1753, to be entered there as a stu- dent of law in the Middle Temple. At that time it was common to send the sons of wealthy planters in the Southern Colonies who were designed to be prac- titioners at the Colonial bar, or to take part in public life, to one of the Inns of Court, in order that they might complete their legal education. It was sup- posed, of course, that they would there have not only opportunities of acquiring a knowledge of their pro- fession which they could not find in America, but also that their association with strangers and with young men engaged in a common pursuit, and their observa- tion of a totally different form of society from that which was to be found in their native country, would broaden their views upon all subjects, and render them better fitted for the work they had to do in life.
As these Inns of Court trained for their profession some of the most prominent lawyers of the country before the Revolution, and especially as these young men there acquired a knowledge of those principles of the English common law which governed not only their legal but their political views during the crisis in which they were destined to live and to act, a few words concerning the history of these Inns, and the
21
22 THE INNS OF COURT.
character of the instruction given there to the pupils, may not be out of place. The apology for such a digression from the narrative must be found in the profound conviction that the destiny of our country during the Revolution was much affected by the train- ing received by many of our young men in these Inns of Court.
It was thought expedient by Edward I., the English Justinian, as he is sometimes called, in 1278, when he desired that the lawyers in his courts should be laymen, and not clerics as they had hitherto been, that there should be a certain number of persons chosen who should receive instruction exclusively in the English common law, that teachers should be provided for them, and a proper place selected for that purpose. These students were to be lodged in houses resembling the colleges of an English university, called Inns of Court, and a regular system of instruction and discipline was organized, to which all intending bnrristers were re- quired to submit. No one was admitted to practise in the courts of the king unless he had conformed to these rules. The officers of these Inns were called benchers, and by them were appointed the teachers or readers of the Inn, whose business it was to instruct the law students in the principles of the English common and statute law exclusively, and the method of trying causes in the English courts. The Inns in which they resided took the name of the knights to whom they had formerly belonged. Thus, the Inner and Middle Temple formed what had once been the house of the English Knights Templar. The Temple had been, after the dissolution of the order, transferred to the Knights
NATURE OF THE INSTRUCTION. 23
Hospitallers, and at last confiscated to the crown in the reign of Henry VIII. These and other houses, part of the royal domain, were then conveyed to the socie- ties of lawyers organized by Edward I. in perpetuity, in trust for the reception and education of the professors and students of the laws of the realm. No one was admitted to practise in the king's courts unless he was presented as a fitting person, after having undergone a term of study prescribed by two benchers of one of these societies, or had been "called," as is the English term, by one of them to the bar.
Such is a sketch of the constitution of the earliest English law-schools ; and they remained substantially the same when they were resorted to by American students in the eighteenth century. Their business was to teach the principles and the practice of the English common law exclusively.
The nstruction given in these Inns of Court consisted in what was technically called*' bolting" (a strange name for an intellectual process), in " mootings," and in at- tendance upon the lectures given by the readers who were members of the Inns. " Bolting" consisted in conversational arguments upon cases put to the student by a bencher, and two barristers sitting as his judges in private. After a man became an expert " bolter" he was admitted to the "mootings," which were public disputations on legal questions held in the presence of the Fellows. In the mean time, lectures on the English statute and common law were delivered. After seven years of this sort of work had been gone through, and a successful examination had been passed, and proof had been made that a certain number of
24 ENGLISH FELLOW-STUDENTS.
dinners had been duly eaten in the hall of the society by the candidate, he was presented by the benchers to the judges as a fit person to be admitted to the bar.
Such were the Inns of Court. They were resorted to by American students, not only because there alone could any systematic instruction in the English law be found, but also because in them they were brought into close contact with the men who at a later day, as lawyers and as statesmen, would become conspicuous as leaders at the bar and as members of Parliament. Thus, John Dickinson had for his fellow-students, during his attend- ance at the Middle Temple, such men as Lord Thur- low, afterwards Lord Chancellor ; Kenyon, Chief Justice of the King's Bench ; John Hill, afterwards Earl of Hillsborough ; and William Cowper, the poet. No doubt the men who were trained in the Temple acquired at home after their return a certain prestige which helped them forward in their professional career.
But the influence of a course of study of two or three years' duration in these London schools and residence in England had, as was natural, a much deeper and more abiding effect upon the character of these young American lawyers. It is to be remembered that they were trained there exclusively in the English statute and common law. Now, the English code is based more completely on historical precedent \ and cus- tomary law, and less upon the deductions of universal right and reason, than the code of any other system of public law in Europe. On the Continent the Roman law, which is the outgrowth of a philosophical con- ception of what ought to be the relations of men in civil society, more or less modified, of course, in each
THE ENGLISH COMMON LA W. 25
country by the customary law, prevailed everywhere. The English, insular in everything, were always noted for their prejudices against the introduction into their own country of the Roman code. Nolumus leges An- glicz mutari was for many centuries the principle which governed the English Parliament and courts. Indeed, the establishment by royal authority in the thirteenth century of schools, which still exist, where the Eng- lish common or customary law should be exclusively studied, is the best proof of the long continuance of this practice. This prejudice had doubtless been intensified by the events which followed the Reformation, and the consequence was that before the time of Mansfield, whose broad and sagacious views of the law as a sci- ence fused many of the principles of the Roman system into the hard English common law, students like Dick- inson and his fellow-countrymen were trained exclu- sively in the solution of legal questions in accordance with English methods, and their conclusions were based wholly upon the maxims of the English law. To reach these conclusions the student did not go beyond Eng- lish precedent or English history. It is not to be sup- posed that these conclusions were necessarily founded on a narrow basis ; England was then the only country in Europe in which the liberty of the subject was pro- tected by the guarantees of fundamental law. These young men, so far as they were taught anything about the liberty of the subject, were, no doubt, told that English liberty and the rights of English subjects in the Colonies, as well as at home, were built, not, as many afterwards contended, on some vague theory of natural rights, but upon a much firmer and surer
26 EFFECT OF THIS LEGAL TRAINING.
foundation, immemorial custom, which formed the Eng- lish constitution. That constitution, the outgrowth of Magna Charta, the petition of right, and the act of set- tlement, settled clearly, as all Englishmen were then taught, the nature and scope of the rights of the subject and provided a sufficient safeguard for their protection. Hence an American lawyer bred in the English Inns of Court necessarily imbibed certain ideas with refer- ence to the political rights and duties of the Colonists, which became ever afterwards the unchangeable creed of his professional life.
The effect of this peculiar training upon a large number of American lawyers who afterwards became prominent in their profession here was very apparent in the controversies which subsequently arose between the mother-country and the Colonies in regard to their relations to each other. These lawyers formed unde- niably for twenty years before the Revolution the elite of the profession in the Colonies south of the Hudson River, and their opinions on the questions in contro- versy (which were regarded by every one in that part of the country as peculiarly legal ones), formed by their training in the Temple, directed public opinion on the subject, at least in the earlier stages of the dispute, wherever they were known. I have before me a list of one hundred and fifteen students, Americans, who were admitted to the different Inns of Court from 1760 to the close of the Revolution. This list is a curious and significant one when we arrange these students geographically: South Carolina leads in num- ber, having forty-seven ; Virginia has twenty-one ; Mary- land, sixteen ; Pennsylvania, eleven ; New York, five ; and
AMERICAN STUDENTS IN THE TEMPLE. 27
each of the other States one or two only, that being the whole number sent from New England, neither of them bearing names conspicuous in Revolutionary history.1 The names in this list are nearly all those of men who took a great part in the Revolutionary contest ; most of them were English Constitutional Whigs, in whom that event developed almost every shade of political opinion except non-resistance, yet they all based their theories of resistance upon the English law and English tradi- tions which they had been taught in the Temple. We find among them, for instance, the names of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the strongly conservative assertor of American liberty; Edward Rutledge, who opposed to the last the Declaration of Independence; and along-side of these Heyward, Trapier, and Lynch, who, if they agreed about nothing else, were at least all Whigs, American as well as English. So we find the two Lees, Richard Henry and Arthur, the latter more conspicuous as a diplomatist, perhaps, during the Rev- olution than useful as a legislator. From Maryland we have, among others, the most eminent lawyer of the province, Daniel Dulany, the author of a theory of legal resistance, founded upon the distinction between internal and external taxation, so subtle and refined, and yet so wide-spread in its consequences, that it was
1 It is curious to observe how very small a number of New Eng- land physicians as well as of lawyers were educated in Europe during the eighteenth century. It appears from a "List of the Graduates in Medicine in the University of Edinburgh," printed by Neill & Co., 1867, that of sixty-three Americans who received the degree of Doctor of Medicine in that university between 1758 and 1788 only one was from New England.
28 PENNSYLVANIA STUDENTS.
adopted by the Earl of Chatham in defending Amer- ican rights in the House of Lords. From Pennsyl- vania we find, as the worthy successors of Dickinson and others who received their legal education in these Inns of Court between the years 1750 and 1760, a class of men whom to name is to present a brilliant array not only of those who laid the foundation of the reputation of the Philadelphia bar for learning and ability, but of those also who exerted the most potent influence in building up our political system during the Revolutionary era. In this list are to be found the names of Nicholas Wain, Jasper Yeates, Joseph Reed, William Hamilton, the three Tilghmans (Richard, Ed- ward, and William), Thomas McKean, Jared Ingersoll, Moses Franks, William Rawle, Benjamin Chew, and Peter Markoe, — all of whom are well known to have been men of the highest professional standing, not only in the province, but throughout the Colonies. These men differed in many things, but in one they agreed, and that was that the dispute with Great Brit- ain was mainly a legal question, and that up to the period of the Declaration of Independence it might be settled as other legal questions were, if not by a ju- dicial tribunal, then by an appeal to legal principles recognized in common by both mother-country and the Colonies as the outgrowth of English history and traditions. There was another principle held in com- mon by all these men : from the beginning to the end they all maintained their resistance to the ministerial measures on the ground that these acts were violations of English, not of natural, law. The first code they had thoroughly studied in the Temple and seen its
NATURE OF RESISTANCE IN NEW ENGLAND. 29
practical working in England and in their own coun- try; the other was a vague, indistinct, and illimitable theory, which might justify any measures calculated to rouse the passions or inflame the ambition of those who supported it as a rule of action. In short, the resistance of the Central Colonies, led by these Tem- plars, was at the beginning a constitutional resistance within the lines of the English law ; that of their oppo- nents was a revolutionary resistance at all times, wholly discarding the injunctions of positive law when not in accord with their aims, and resting for their justification, very much as the French did in the Revolution of 1 793, on alleged violations of what they were pleased to call the Rights of Man.
The full influence of the Temple education on the lawyers of the Central Colonies is perhaps most clearly seen when it is contrasted with the training of men of the same profession in New England. We must re- member that almost no students from this part of the country were entered at the Inns of Court prior to the Revolution, although all the Colonies were governed mainly by the same English common law. The cause of their absence is obvious ; and to the different train- ing of the New England lawyers, and to their rela- tively different position in the society of which they formed a part, are to be ascribed the peculiar views which were there maintained of the controversy prior to the Declaration of Independence.
The clergy (that is to say, the Congregational minis- ters), and not the lawyers, were the leaders of public opinion in New England. The system which prevailed there under "the established order," or the old charter
30 THE POSITION OF THE CLERGY.
in Massachusetts, was essentially a theocracy, and so it remained, although somewhat modified, up to the time of the Revolution. In the midst of that struggle, in 1 780, the clergy was strong enough to secure in Mas- sachusetts by the Bill of Rights of the new constitu- tion, as they supposed, forever, the establishment of a church of a special type, each town, parish, precinct, and other body politic, or religious society, having con- ferred upon it by this instrument the exclusive right of electing its public teachers and contracting with them for their support and maintenance. " It remains true," says Brooks Adams, in his " Emancipation of Massachusetts," " that secular liberalism could never have produced that peculiarly acrimonious hostility to Great Britain wherein Massachusetts stands pre-emi- nent. . . . Too little study is given to her ecclesiastical history; the impulses which moulded the destiny of Massachusetts cannot be understood unless the events which stimulated the passions of her clergy are kept in view. Hatred to the Episcopal (Church) and especially to the Prelatical form of its government had much to do with rousing the passions of those who feared that the English government was in earnest in its design of appointing bishops for New England." It must be remembered, in considering the course taken by Massa- chusetts prior to the Revolution, that the clergy of that Colony everywhere, but especially in the small towns, were those who directed the course of the movement. They had, of course, many lay helpers, of whom Samuel Adams, who was the first to dream of inde- pendence, and who never ceased, in season and out of season, to work for it, was the chief.
THE CLERGY AND THE LAW. 3*
How, then, did the New England Congregational clergy stand towards the English common and parlia- mentary law, the violation of which it was claimed by the leaders in the other Colonies was our great grievance ? The natural course of opposition to the acts of the ministry would have been to convince those who had the control of the government either that they were ex- ceeding their authority or that their acts were wholly unjustified by the English theory of Colonial law or by the precedents and practice under it. But they dis- dained to rest their case upon the allegation that the acts complained of were mere violations of positive written law, or even of provisions of their own charters. There seemed to be always a lurking feeling that al- though their charters were violated, yet, after all, their rights rested upon something above and beyond Eng- lish law ; in other words, that they possessed certain natural rights, founded, as they asserted, on the prin- ciples of what was called natural equity. This was the favorite thesis of the Congregational clergy, and it carried the people, whose leaders they were, very far beyond the ideas of resistance which prevailed else- where. In a word, they were jealous from the begin- ning of any control of their wishes by either royal or parliamentary authority.
Among men with such a conception of government there was of course nothing in the course of legal educa- tion pursued in the Inns of Court with special reference to the common and the statute law of England which would recommend itself to the study of those who pro- posed to become lawyers and magistrates in the com- monwealth. They maintained, it is true, with a genuine
32 THE COMMON LAW IN NEW ENGLAND.
English instinct, a certain code of common law, but it was very unlike the system taught in the Temple and Lincoln's Inn and the code of practice of the English courts. Here is their version, for instance, of some of the most important provisions of Magna Charta: " No man's life shall be taken away, no man's honour or good name shall be stayned, no man's person shall be ar- rested, restrayned, banished, dismembered, or any ways punished, unless it be by virtue or equitie of some ex- presse law of the country warranting the same ; or, in case of the defect of the law in any particular case, by the word of God ; and in capital cases, or in cases con- cerning dismemberment or banishment, according to that, and to be judged by the General Court." This code was administered at first by a judiciary composed of magistrates who were not required to be trained in any knowledge of the civil law, and down to the Revolu- tion the commonwealth suffered from the pernicious tra- dition " that the civil magistrate needed no special learn- ing to perform his duty, and was to take his law from those who expounded the word of God." A learned and independent bar has always been regarded both in England and in those States which have adopted the English system as one of the great safeguards of the liberties of the people; but in Massachusetts, under the theocracy, the policy of the clergy had been to suppress as much as possible the study of the law, although under the new charter their power was much lessened. Yet the tradition was still strong enough to discourage the acquisition of legal knowledge. There was, therefore, no inducement to send their young men to England, where they might gain a competent knowledge of it.
THE LA W AS PR A CTISED IN NE W ENGLAND. 33
From the judgment of the courts in Massachusetts and Connecticut there was an appeal to the legislature in criminal cases, which, in violation of all theories of the dis- tribution of powers, modified or confirmed or made null the course of justice by requiring it to conform to what the members of the legislature were pleased to call " natural equity." The result of all this was a total ignorance of, even a contempt for, the law as a science, and thus the course of New England previous to the Revolution was far from showing that vindication of English liberty when it was assailed by the ministry on the ground that the act was in violation of rights guaranteed by charters and positive laws, which formed the ground of resistance in other parts of the country. The most extraordinary illustration of the manner in which the provisions of the English law were interpreted, especially as to the extent of the obligations of the Colonists to obey them, is found in the declarations of James Otis in his early life, and of John Adams, two of the leading members of the Boston bar, just before the Revolution. James Otis, in his great argument on " Writs of Assistance," in 1761, maintained that "an act of Parliament against the constitution (that is, against the fundamental prin- ciples of English law) is void ; that an act against natural equity is void ; that if an act of Parliament should be made in the very words of this petition it would be void." So John Adams, among many other wonderful deliverances concerning the nature of polit- ical institutions, did not hesitate to write in 1776 to Mr. Justice Cushing, " You have my hearty concurrence in telling the jury the nullity of the act of Parliament. I am determined to die of that opinion, let the jus gladii
3
34 SAMUEL ADAMS AS A LA WYER.
say what it will." So the letters of Samuel Adams are filled with these strange interpretations of the law, or rather with an open defiance of any law which should interpose to check his ardent efforts for independence. Such doctrines may be preached from the pulpit, or form the staple of the rhetoric which is powerful at mass-meetings, but that eminent lawyers should avow them in courts of justice, where the judges are sworn to administer the law and not " natural equity," would seem to show that those who advocated them had not been trained in the English law-schools, in the Temple, or at Lincoln's Inn. It is a thousand pities that these men had not in their youth undergone some of the sobering training and discipline which were provided there for students.
CHAPTER III.
PROPRIETARY GOVERNMENT IN PENNSYLVANIA.
THIS account of the different legal training provided for those who were prominent in the New England political life, and for those who held the same position in the other Colonies prior to the Revolution, has been given because it seemed necessary to show how wide was the chasm which separated them when the crisis arrived. They acted on one of two opposite political theories, each of which was the outgrowth of their special condition, environment, and education. In these differences of training we have the key-note to their different attitudes during the early part of the war, and especially towards the Declaration of Indepen- dence. John Dickinson may be considered the type of those whose horizon was always bounded by the legal aspects of the situation. Samuel Adams, on the other hand, was naturally an enthusiastic revolutionist, for whom existing laws, if they interfered with the adop- tion of his views of independence, were only obstacles to be removed, like any others, without scruple, if he had the power to do so.
Mr. Dickinson returned to Philadelphia in 1757, and at once entered upon the practice of his profession. No young lawyer rises into notice as rapidly as he hopes and expects, and his waiting hours are apt to be given to pursuits which are not strictly professional, and
35
36 MR. DICKINSON AT THE BAR.
which are sometimes not productive of good fruits in after-years. But Dickinson was not a mere lawyer in the sense that he adopted the calling in order to make a livelihood. He was a man of statesmanlike mind, and, no doubt, ambitious of distinction in public life. He seems to have spent much of his time during the next few years in the study of English constitutional his- tory and of what we should now call political science. The relations of the mother-country to the Colonies, and indeed the theory and operation of the Colonial system generally, were then looked upon as subjects of paramount interest and importance by public men in all the Colonies, and they naturally engrossed much of Dickinson's time and study. His earlier writings, as we shall see, bear testimony not merely to the wide extent of his reading, but to his capacity of applying the principles deduced from what he read to the actual condition of the Colonies ; but work like this was soon abandoned for the business which his clients brought him. He was, no doubt, at once recognized as a young man of brilliant promise at the bar, and, although we know very little of his progress in his profession, it is plain that he was not forced to wait long for clients. We find in the first volume of Dallas's Reports that there are three cases mentioned which Mr. Dickinson argued in the Supreme Court in April term, 1760. One of these was a case of " foreign attachment," as it is technically called; the second, an ejectment case; and the third, one in which certain points of practice in the criminal law were discussed. In the first he and Mr. Galloway were opposed by the two leaders of the bar at that time, Messrs. Moland and Chew, — the first
HIS SUCCESS AS A LAWYER. 37
his former preceptor, and the other Chief Justice of the Province in 1772. This alone is sufficient assurance that in five years he had acquired a recognized high position at the bar in the judgment of his professional brethren. From this time he appears, from all that we can learn, to have risen in reputation rapidly and to have increased his business. In a letter to George Read, dated October i, 1762, referring to the profes- sional engagements which pressed upon him at that time, he says, " I took the liberty a few days ago to make you a trouble, by asking you to try two causes between [parties named in Delaware], as I shall be pre- vented from attending by several cases of consequence in our Supreme Court to be tried at that time." Un- fortunately, none of his forensic arguments have come down to us ; but there seems little doubt that upon them was founded the reputation which brought him early into public life. William Rawle the elder, in his account of the early bar, speaking, probably, more from tradition than from actual observation, says of Dickinson at a much later date, " He possessed considerable fluency, with a sweetness of tone and agreeable modulation of voice, not well calculated, however, for a large audience. His law knowledge was respectable, although not re- markably extensive, for his attention was directed to historical and political studies. Wholly engaged in public life, he left the bar soon after the commence- ment of the American Revolution."
In October, 1760, he was elected a member of the Assembly of the " lower counties/' as the State of Dela- ware was then called. It will be remembered that, up to the time of the Revolution, Delaware had the same
38 ENTERS PUBLIC LIFE.
Governor as Pennsylvania, but a different Assembly, and there seems to have been to a much later period an interchange of the public men of each of these States, so that men like Dickinson and McKean held office in both at different times. Dickinson's reputa- tion had evidently preceded him in Delaware, for on becoming a member of the Assembly he was elected Speaker of that body.
In 1762 he was chosen a member of the Pennsyl- vania Assembly from the city of Philadelphia. He writes to George Read concerning this election words which formed, we may be quite sure, the rule of his conduct during his whole political life : " I flatter myself that I come in with the approval of all good men. I confess," he says, avowing his ambition for success in political life, " that I should like to make an immense bustle in the world, if it could be done by virtuous actions; but, as there is no probability in that, I am content if I can live innocent and beloved by those I love."
When Dickinson became a member of the Pennsyl- vania Assembly, the questions which occupied the public attention, and which were discussed with masterly abil- ity by Dickinson on the one side and Franklin and Galloway on the other, were fundamental, involving the fate of the Proprietary government and of the charter which had been granted to William Penn by Charles II. The interest awakened by these discus- sions was not of that limited and local character which ordinarily attaches to measures brought before a pro- vincial legislature. The changes in the government proposed and argued upon were radical, and they
THE PENNSYLVANIA ASSEMBLY. 39
embraced a discussion of the whole theory of Colonial government, and especially of that peculiar phase of it called Proprietary.1 The disputants on such a ques- tion had but little light to guide them from the expe- rience of other nations ; for the form of government was essentially, at least so far as it was possible to administer it among people governed by the principles of English law, a novel one. The change which was demanded by popular clamor was a revolutionary one, and the eagerness with which it was urged was due to the misgovernment of the Proprietaries, and especially of their deputies or governors, who were sent here with the most minute and stringent instructions as to the manner in which they should rule the Prov- ince. This dispute involved, among other things, points of such cardinal importance as these : the right of the Assembly to grant money for the public service on its own terms ; its claims that it alone should dis- tribute the public burdens by imposing taxes on such objects as it deemed best, and especially its right to tax all the Proprietary estates as the estates of pri- vate persons were taxed ; its right to decline to aid England in the prosecution of her foreign wars, in
1 Mr. Dickinson, while a student in the Temple, had been present at the argument before the Lords of Trade in February, 1756, on the petition of certain inhabitants of Pennsylvania praying that Quakers might be disqualified from sitting as members of the Assembly. His notes of the arguments of Mr. Yorke (afterwards Lord Morden) on the one side, and of Mr. Pratt (afterwards Lord Camden) and Mr. Henley on the other, have been preserved, and show how deep was the inter- est he felt in these questions of the Proprietary claims, and how well fitted he was to discuss them. (See "The Attitude of the Quakers in the Provincial Wars," Pennsylvania Magazine for October, 1886.)
40 DISCONTENT IN THE PROVINCE.
which, it was said, the Province, as such, had no in- terest whatever ; its right and power to establish a military force for the defence of the Province, com- posed of volunteers, instead of those serving under a militia law which made the service compulsory; its right and duty to treat the Indians within the Province as they had been treated by William Penn, and to defend them against the cruelty and rapacity of the Provincial agents who sought to defraud them of their lands. These were not new questions in 1762; they had been most earnestly discussed in 1755, when the people of Pennsylvania, or a large portion of them, tired of the endless quarrels between the Assembly and the deputy governor, and finding in these quarrels the cause of the defencelessness of the frontiers and of the exposure of the settlers in that region to the incursions of the French and their allies the Indians, sent a petition to the king praying that, for the sake of those of his subjects who were suffering, no Quaker should be hereafter allowed to sit in the Assembly. It was averred (untruly, as it afterwards appeared) that the Quakers, owing to their conscientious scruples about declaring war, were unwilling to take any meas- ures for the defence of the Province and its inhabitants. The Quakers, and their political friends the Germans, had been attacked with the utmost virulence in 1755 by the Presbyterians and the Church people for their supposed want of sympathy with the western settlers. The quarrel was renewed, if possible more fiercely, and under nearly the same conditions, in 1762, when Dickinson entered upon public life.
These were subjects which Mr. Dickinson, from his
FRANKLIN AND DICKINSON.
long familiarity with the course of English law and tra- ditions, was peculiarly well qualified to discuss, and he soon became a recognized authority among those who sought to restrain the revolutionary torrent which threat- ened to overwhelm the Proprietary government. His chief opponent was Dr. Franklin, who found in this young man a foeman worthy of his steel. The repre- sentatives of the people of Pennsylvania had at least the advantage of hearing these fundamental questions, upon the decision of which so much depended, argued by the two greatest political philosophers of the day, Franklin and Dickinson. This was the first occasion on which these redoubtable antagonists met in conflict, and they never afterwards encountered each other, strange to say, in the discussion of political questions except as champions of opposite principles. Each was well fitted for the combat.
Dickinson was in one sense certainly a man of the world, and had a good deal of experience in practical affairs ; but, after all, he was chiefly a student, and was most familiar with human nature as he found it described in the books and writings of philosophers. Franklin has been well called the apostle of common sense. No man observed more keenly or understood better the defects and the prejudices of the average pro- vincial, as well as the limit of his intelligence, and he appealed to no sentiment higher than that to which his constituents could readily respond. While he must have been familiar with the many excellencies of the Proprietary charter, the merits of which had indeed been trumpeted all through the world, and in favor of the continued existence of which seventy years of unex-
42 THE PROPRIETARY ESTATE.
ampled prosperity pleaded, yet, when he wished for his own reasons to destroy it forever, he knew well how to take the best means of accomplishing his object.1 He knew how to paint in striking colors, although in a style almost transparent from its simplicity, the selfish policy of the Penn family, its utter meanness in refusing to consent that its enormous estate should be taxed as other estates were, its bad faith in dealing with the Indians, and its cruel neglect of those of the inhabitants who were exposed to their barbarities. The Penn family he always represented as the greatest land- holders of modern times, the actual area of their prop- erty embracing 55,252 square miles, or 35,361,300 acres. This overgrown estate was managed like a large farm, with little regard, after the death of the founder of the Province, for the welfare and interests of those who had been induced by him to settle here. The policy of the Proprietary family was that the least possible sum should be spent upon the improvement of the Province, so that the largest possible money return might be received from the investment. In short, Franklin knew well how to catch the gale of popular favor so that it would help forward any scheme which he had at heart, and in his efforts to destroy the Proprietary government, it must be confessed, he was much aided by the pretensions to arbitrary power made by the Proprietary family itself and by its governors here.
1 It may be assumed that Dr. Franklin was the author of the "Historical Review." It is certainly the ablest political pamphlet, notwithstanding its defects and exaggerations, published with respect to the Proprietary controversy.
DICKINSON'S POSITION. 43
Dickinson, on the contrary, from the very beginning maintained the losing side of this controversy. He saw, as clearly as any one else, the mistakes made by the deputy governors by their system of thwarting the wishes of the inhabitants, and doing nothing to en- courage them in the great work in which they were engaged of developing the heritage of the Penns, and refusing to a large portion of them needed protection while they were thus occupied. The question was not whether the existing system was a bad one (of that there could be no doubt whatever), but whether the direct royal government of the Province which it was proposed to substitute for it would improve the condi- tion of the inhabitants. Dickinson was always an in- tense conservative, and he had a horror of any changes brought about by revolutionary means. The defects in the Proprietary government were very familiar, but the law and history of the case and the dangers of ex- changing the old system for a royal government were not so familiar, and he took the unpopular side in ex- posing these dangers. He seems to have been abso- lutely independent in the course which he took in this controversy. He had no alliances or connections with the Proprietary family, or with those who by force of patronage and the tenure of office felt obliged to maintain their cause. Like the honored Speaker of the House of Assembly, Isaac Norris, his future father- in-law, much as he deplored the misgovernment of the Penns, he could not think that the true remedy was to throw themselves on the tender mercies of the royal government. For some reason he seems, during the discussion, to have had misgivings concerning the in-
44 SKETCH OF THE DISPUTE.
tentions of the ministry should the charter be surren- dered, and we shall see how sagacious was his foresight ; at all events, he took the course which for the time was sure to make him unpopular with the multitude. It may be said, in passing, that Franklin and Dickinson each possessed a powerful weapon in controversy, and that was their clear, simple, and faultless English style. Compared with any other writers or speakers of that day on this continent, we find none who wrote with the same plainness, directness, and elegance, and with the same logical force, as these two great men.
It is important for the understanding of this contro- versy in 1764 that we should recall that previous period of the history of the Province in which disputes arising from the same cause existed, and especially the troubles which led to the presentation of a petition by the As- sembly in 1755, through the influence of Dr. Franklin, to the king, praying that he would forbid thereafter the election of Quakers as members of that body. The object of both petitions was the same in this, that they prayed that a royal government should be substituted for that of the Proprietary ; but, for reasons which will subsequently appear, the position of the parties was reversed in 1764, the Quakers generally favoring the petition of that year, while they had of course been op- posed to that of 1 755. Many persons, and especially the powerful body of Presbyterians (who acted as a political party throughout the Province), had urged, in 1755, that power should be taken out of the hands of the Quaker Assembly, principally because it had not protected their co-religionists on the frontiers ; but they objected, in 1764, to a surrender of the charter, lest the rights and
DICKINSON'S ARGUMENT. 45
privileges of their body might be curtailed under a royal government.
The ability and skill shown by Dickinson in arguing that, manifold as were the abuses from which the Province suffered under the rule of deputies appointed by the Proprietor, it would not be safe to risk a change in the hope that its condition would be improved under a royal government, made a great impression at the time both on his friends and on his opponents. His view was felt to be the statesmanlike view, even if it were not the popular one. What the actual grievances then were, and what privileges the people were asked to give up, trusting entirely to the tender mercies of the Board of Trade for a change for the better, we must now consider in a review of these transactions. Let us try to get an accurate knowledge of the condition of the Province when it was called upon in 1755 and in 1764 to propose revolutionary changes in its govern- ment, and then we can judge of the soundness of the remedy for admitted evils proposed by Mr. Dickinson.
In 1739, Andrew Hamilton, who had been for many years Speaker of the Assembly, said to that body on his retiring from office, " It is not to the fertility of our soil and the commodiousness of our rivers that we ought chiefly to attribute the great progress this Province has made within so small a compass of years in improve- ments, wealth, trade, and navigation, and the extraordi- nary increase of people who have been drawn from almost every country of Europe ; it is all due to the excellency of our constitution. Our foreign trade and shipping are free from all imposts except those small duties payable to his Majesty by the statute laws of
46 PROSPERITY OF THE PROVINCE.
Great Britain. The taxes are inconsiderable, for the sole power of raising and disposing of the public money is lodged in the Assembly. Other incidental taxes are assessed, collected, and applied by persons annually chosen by the people themselves. ... By many years' experience we find that an equality among religious societies, without distinguishing one sect with greater privileges than another, is the most effectual method to discourage hypocrisy, promote the practice of the moral virtues, and prevent the plagues and mischiefs which always attend religious squabbling. This is our consti- tution, and this constitution was framed by the wisdom of Mr. Penn," etc.
The Province of Pennsylvania in 1 740 had about one hundred thousand inhabitants. The population was divided into three distinct groups, — the Quakers, in Philadelphia, Chester, and Bucks ; the Germans, — or Palatines, as they were called, — in Lancaster, Berks, and Northampton ; and the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, in York and Cumberland. The country west of the Susquehanna, with the exception of the last-named counties, was a wilderness occupied by Indians for some distance beyond the Alleghanies, where it was bounded by the line from Erie to Pittsburg which was being fortified by the French. Of the inhabitants of the Province, one-fourth or one-fifth were Quakers, about one-half Germans, and the rest emigrants from the north of Ireland. The influence of the Quakers was still predominant, although the large emigration from Europe had much lessened it in the latter years of the period we are considering. The principal business of the people was agricultural, to which they added such
PROVINCIAL FINANCE. 47
commerce to Europe and the West Indies as was re- quired to transport thither their provisions. During this period, notwithstanding the French and Indians were de- stroying the lives of the people of the back counties and their property, the material prosperity of the Province was uninterrupted. The imports and the shipping had increased twofold, and the exports threefold, and more than twenty-five thousand Germans alone emigrated to the Province. There was no land-tax, and had been none for nearly forty years. The expenses of govern- ment were paid by an excise and by tavern licenses. There was little gold or silver in the Province, the greater portion having been drained out of the country to pay for English imports. The Assembly was in the habit of meeting extraordinary emergencies by issuing paper money, — that is, lending the credit of the Prov- ince to those who would pay a good interest for it and give ample security for the return of the loan. To this policy was attributed by the Provincials, with Dr. Frank- lin at their head, the extraordinary prosperity of the country, which was thus abundantly supplied with a cheap currency. The royal government and the Pro- prietaries were no friends to paper money, — at least to that issued by the English Colonies, — and on this sub- ject there was a constant controversy between the As- sembly of the Province and the governors appointed by the Penns. To irreconcilable differences on this point, and not to religious scruples, is no doubt to be ascribed much of the embarrassment of the English government in Pennsylvania in raising men, money, and supplies for the prosecution of the war.
The Province was then ruled by deputy or lieutenant
48 CHARTER PRIVILEGES.
governors, appointed by the Penns as Proprietaries and confirmed by the king. They were assisted by a coun- cil which had no legislative power ; that was exclusively vested by the charter in the Assembly, which exercised great authority by virtue of that instrument and claimed much more, — a pretension which was strongly opposed by the Penns and their governors. This body was granted, by the amended charter of 1701, power, among other things, " to appoint committees, prepare bills, im- peach criminals, and redress grievances, with all other powers and privileges of an Assembly, according to the rights of free-born subjects of England'' Under these large powers the Assembly prior to 1 740 had secured two important concessions, which had much to do with the question of its motive in withholding or granting the supplies that were asked for by the Proprietaries and the Crown for the prosecution of the war. These were, first, that to the Assembly belonged exclusively the right not merely of disposing of the public money, but of determining the means and method by which it should be raised ; and, secondly, that the decision of the lieutenant-governor approving or disapproving a bill passed by the Assembly should be final, and not subject to reversal by the Proprietary.
After 1751 this Assembly was composed of thirty-six members ; and it cannot be doubted that it most truly represented the wealth and intelligence of the Province. Of this number twenty-six members represented the home counties of Philadelphia, Chester, and Bucks ; the other ten were sent by the Germans and the Irish of the back counties, — settlements greater in population, but not possessed to so great a degree as the eastern
POLICY OF THE PROPRIETARIES. 49
counties of those elements which, according to the theory that then prevailed, were entitled to representation.
The legislative power of the Assembly was subject to two important restrictions only, — viz. : first, that the measures adopted by it should receive the approval of the lieutenant-governor ; and, secondly, that to the Privy Council in England was reserved the power to disallow and repeal any laws enacted by the Assembly within five years after their passage. Every parliamen- tary expedient for which there was any precedent was resorted to by the Assembly to maintain its power. Among other things, it insisted, in accordance with the practice of the English House of Commons, that its money-bills should be accepted by the lieutenant-gov- ernor without amendment.
The Assembly from the beginning was always jealous of the authority claimed by the lieutenant-governor, and during these sixteen years it learned to distrust and hate the Proprietary administration. It seems, indeed, that for a body of Englishmen bred in the tra- ditions of English liberty no system more incapable of working smoothly and satisfactorily could well have been devised. The Proprietary was not only their governor, but he was the absolute owner of far the larger portion of the soil of the Province. Hence his public duties, so far as they concerned the wise gov- ernment of his people, were constantly coming into collision with his private interests, which tempted him to govern in such a way as would not be in harmony with the welfare of the people. Thus, the governor objected to the issuing of paper money, both because he supposed that in the end it would ruin the Propri-
4
50 TAXATION AND PAPER MONEY.
etary's private interests in the lands of the Province, and because the English government regarded such a currency as undesirable. The Assembly, with the people, led by Dr. Franklin, on the other hand (rightly or wrongly), regarded this paper money as the panacea for all the ills from which a trading community can suffer, and insisted upon issuing it whenever called upon to vote supplies. Again, the private interests of the Penns led them to oppose taxation of their estates (at first absolutely, and afterwards in a modi- fied way) ; while the necessities of the defence, as well as impartial equity, required that all the estates in the Province should be taxed in the same way, so that each might bear its due share of the general bur- den. For a long time, too, the Penns refused to pay a proper share of the expenses attending Indian treaties for the sale of land, although such treaties added mil- lions of acres to their own overgrown estate, besides, of course, making more valuable that which they already possessed.
Prior to 1755 the controversy between the gov- ernors (Hamilton and Morris) and the Assembly con- cerning, not the granting of supplies, but the manner of raising them, was incessant. Eight times during these years did the governor demand money for supplies for military operations against the French and Indians, and eight times did the Assembly agree to grant them for the king's use, provided they were purchased with money raised by issuing loans. Eight times did the governor, in accordance, as he said, with his instructions from the Proprietaries and the Crown, refuse to accept supplies thus offered, although he was forced, in one or
THE QUAKERS AND WAR MEASURES. 51
two cases, to agree under protest to the bills. In the proceedings during these years there is certainly noth- ing to show any unwillingness to defend the Province, although there were often evasions of the real difficulty on the part of the Assembly which make some of its acts appear disingenuous and uncandid. Still, the main point that the Assembly, on the whole, was in earnest, not only in defending the Province but in maintaining English supremacy on this continent, even if it insisted upon doing it in its own way, seems established.
It is no doubt true that the Assembly, composed in large part of Quakers, had conscientious scruples about declaring and maintaining war, but these scruples had been overcome in previous wars in which the military aid of the Province had been invoked, as many acts of Assembly testify. In this particular case the members supposed that their consciences would be quieted and the Province defended by the enactment of a law for the enrolment of volunteers rather than by a general militia law. Hence the Military Bill and the Supply Bill, which were designed to be substitutes for the Militia Bill and the bill exempting the Proprietary estates from the tax- ation levied on others recommended by the Governor ; and hence their enemies asserted that the Quakers were unwilling to defend the Province, and therefore should be ineligible as members of the Assembly.
The Military Bill was entitled an act "for the better ordering and regulating such as are willing and desirous of being united for military purposes." By it a volun- teer force was raised, thoroughly organized, and made subject to military discipline. This bill was called a usurpation of the rights of the Crown. The Supply
5 2 THE ASSEMBLY REBUKED.
Bill (1755), by which the Proprietaries' estates were exempted from taxation in consideration of a promised gift from them of five thousand pounds, was intended to grant the money necessary for the pay of these troops and for their military operations. With the money and men supplied by these two bills a chain of forts and block-houses extending from the river Delaware along the Kitta tinny Hills to the Maryland line was erected. They were situated at convenient distances from one another and at the most important passes of the mountains, and were garrisoned with companies, all in the pay of the Province, composed of from sev- enty-five to twenty-five men each, according to the situ- ation and importance of the place. In other words, a complete system of defence was at last established. In the face of such acts and such results the Board of Trade had the hardihood to declare that " the measures taken by the Assembly for the defence of the Province were improper, inadequate, and ineffectual, and that there was no cause to hope for other measures while the majority of the Assembly consisted of persons whose avowed principles were against military services."
Such was the manner in which these efforts of the loyal Assembly of Pennsylvania to provide against invasion were regarded by the home government and the Proprietaries. The answer made a profound im- pression upon those who had hitherto supported the pretensions of the Penn family, and brought forth abundant fruit in 1764 and in the Revolution.
Such is an outline of the circumstances which led to the petition of 1755 asking that the Quakers might be disfranchised, and such was its reception by the
NEW INDIAN WAR. 53
ministry. It remained to be seen whether the com- plaints of 1764 would be more readily listened to. Notwithstanding the contempt with which the ministry treated in 1756 the Pennsylvania method of raising soldiers and paying them, the Assembly in 1762, then purged of its non-fighting element, persisted in its claim to vote its own money, to levy taxes upon the Propri- etary estates at the same rate as those of others, and to employ an armed force in such a way as it deemed best for the defence of the Province. From the passive resistance of the Assembly to the demands of the min- istry, and the impossibility of coercing it into obedi- ence, it is clear that this resistance was not due to the Quakers because of their scruples about war, but to others, because they thought the rights secured to them by their charter invaded. Peace was made with the Delaware Indians in 1756, the seven years' war with the French was ended on this continent by the conquest of Canada in 1759, and it was hoped that no further occasion for discussing again this much contro- verted question would arise.
But in 1763 a new Indian war broke out (that of Pontiac), in which the tribes between the Ohio and the Lakes took part, and Pennsylvania was, of course, called upon to raise men and money for the protection of its own frontiers. This was the signal for the renewal of the dispute between the Assembly and the Proprieta- ries in regard to the taxation of their estates. It was supposed that a compromise had been agreed upon between them and Dr. Franklin, the agent of the Province in London, by which it was settled that the Proprietary estates (located but uncultivated) should
54 PONTIAC'S WAR.
not be assessed more highly than at the lowest rate of assessment levied on the uncultivated lands of the inhabitants. The Assembly in November, 1 763, passed an appropriation bill with such a proviso in it, but the governor refused to approve it, on the ground that his interpretation of the stipulation agreed upon in London was that the assessment of the lands of the Proprietaries should not be higher than the lowest valuation of the worst lands of the inhabitants.
The war which was waged by the Delawares and Shawanees was perhaps the most bloody and deso- lating of any Indian war in which the Province was ever engaged. It began in the summer of 1763, and the Indians, having captured all the posts between Lake Erie and Pittsburg, swept down upon the coun- try between the latter place and the Susquehanna, attacking in small parties the homes of the settlers, and destroying all — men, women, and children — who came within their reach. The wretched inhabitants, most of whom were Scotch-Irish emigrants or their children, complained in piteous terms to the Assembly of the want of protection. They did not blame that body for manifesting the same indifference as had been shown by the Assembly to the outrages from which they had suffered in 1755, but they thought that a cer- tain voluntary body called " the Friendly Association," composed of Quakers, whose object it was to protect the Indians from the fraud and rapacity of the Propri- etary agents in their land-purchases, had too much in- fluence with the legislature, who had thus been induced to take too lenient a view of the outrages from which those who lived on the frontiers suffered. Many of
THE ASSEMBLY RESISTS THE GOVERNOR. 55
these in the end lost patience, and some time after, burning with the desire of vengeance, took the law into their own hands, massacred the Indians wherever they could find them, and were guilty of all those ex- cesses known in Pennsylvania history as the " outrages of the Paxton Boys."
The Supply Bill and Military Bill of November, 1763, formed the response of the Assembly to these appeals of the suffering frontiersmen. It voted with great alacrity fifty thousand pounds, and agreed to raise one thousand men, the quota of the Province as fixed by the royal authorities. But the governor (John Penn) would not agree that the tax-rate upon the uncul- tivated lands of the Proprietaries should be higher than the lowest rate at which any of the uncultivated lands of the inhabitants were assessed. There was no time for delay amidst the horrors of an Indian war, if relief was to be given by force of arms ; and yet the deputy governor not only hesitated but actually refused at last to approve a measure essential to the security of a large number of the best citizens of the Province, lest the income of the Proprietaries should for the time be reduced. It is impossible to find any satis- factory explanation for such conduct at such a crisis. The Assembly was more humane, and could not per- severe in its resistance to the act of the governor at so fearful a price. It agreed that the bill should pass with the provisions insisted upon by the governor in regard to taxation. The result was that Colonel Bouquet was enabled to follow up the triumphant results of the battle of Bushy Run, and that the In- dians were at last compelled to leave the Province
56 THE ASSEMBLY FORCED TO YIELD.
to which their fathers had welcomed William Penn. Having in vain appealed to their just and kind treat- ment by the great Onas, as they called him, they were driven from their lands by his successors, and were transformed from the mild Delawares and Shawanees into the fiercest and most cruel warriors of whom Colonial history makes mention.
The victory of the governor over the Assembly in forcing it to give way at this crisis cost the Propri- etaries dearly. It was, indeed, the beginning of that discontent with their government which would undoubt- edly in a few years have overthrown it had not the work been done by the American Revolution. Their conduct in Pennsylvania had been such that no one justified it, least of all the Quakers, who had hitherto been its main supporters. They had deeply offended the children of those who had been William Penn's friends and companions, and who continued to adhere to those maxims of government of which he had been so illustrious an exponent. The rapacity which the governor had shown in appropriating the lands of the Indians, and his unwillingness that these lands should bear a due share of the burden of taxation, had shocked the moral sense of the Quakers, and they did not hesitate to speak plainly of these iniquitous pro- ceedings. With the Quakers agreed many of the Ger- mans, especially those who had not been exposed to the incursions of the savages ; while the rest, who lived in the country districts and saw for themselves the dan- gers of an Indian war, demanded, of course, a govern- ment which would protect them. But those who were most violent in denouncing the Proprietary government
DISLIKE OF DEPUTIES. 57
because its deputy here would not consent that the Prov- ince should be defended in the way proposed by the Assembly, lest the family income of the Penns should be endangered, were the Scotch-Irish settlers to the west of the Susquehanna ; although the Presbyterian clergy among them were apprehensive, as we have seen, of danger to their church should a royal government be substituted for that of the Proprietary. In vain had they appealed to the government for protection during many years, as in 1755 and in 1763; in vain had they begged and suffered and threatened. Nothing was done, because of the quarrels between the Assembly and the governor, each trying to shift the blame upon the other. At last, and for once in the histbry of Pennsylvania, there came a time when there was no difference of opinion among her people ; all agreed that the blame should rest upon the Proprietaries and their agents. The Quakers were no longer censured, and an As- sembly of which they formed an inconsiderable portion as compared with the non-fighting Quakers of the Assemblies prior to 1756 unanimously adopted twenty- six resolutions, prepared by Mr. Galloway, setting forth the nature and extent of the grievances which they had suffered at the hands of the Proprietaries.
The great burden of complaint seems to have been the government of a deputy without whose consent no legislation could be enacted, who was bound in his acts to obey the instructions of the Proprietaries in England, and who was in no way responsible to the people of the Province for them. This, it was alleged, had been the main cause of the unequal taxation, the defenceless- ness of the Province, and all the other evils from which
5* GRIEVANCES COMPLAINED OF.
it was suffering. It was said that the Assembly had since the settlement of the Province paid large sums by way of revenue to the Proprietaries and for the support of their governors, but that the Proprietaries had themselves appropriated for their private use all the best lands as soon as they had been acquired from the Indians, holding them for a high market, and in the mean time refusing to pay taxes on them. Thus the resolutions went on, heaping complaint upon complaint of the Proprietary system. Much of this, no doubt, was exaggeration, but it shows at least the utter discontent of the inhabitants with the rule to which they were sub- jected. The conclusion at which they arrived was this : " That the sole executive powers of government being in the hands of the Proprietaries (the actual owners of the larger portion of the soil), together with the exten- sive and growing influence arising from their vast and daily increasing estate, must in future times, according to the natural course of human affairs, render them ab- solute, and they may become as dangerous to the pre- rogatives of the Crown as to the liberties of the people."
These resolutions, drawn up by Galloway, were, as we have said, unanimously adopted, and it was under- stood when the Assembly adjourned that it would meet again in fifty days, to decide upon what measures it would recommend to redress the long list of grievances which it had enumerated. In the interval there was much talk of an address to the king asking him to re- voke the charter and to take the Province under his own royal government, always reserving to the inhabitants the chartered privileges they had hitherto enjoyed.
When the Assembly met, in May, 1764, the commit-
GALLOWAY'S RESOLUTIONS. 59
tee which had been appointed at the previous session (consisting of Messrs. Galloway, Franklin, Rodman, Pearson, Douglas, Montgomery, and Tool) to recom- mend what course ought to be pursued at this crisis, reported that a petition to the king which had been prepared by Dr. Franklin should be adopted. This petition prayed that his Majesty "would resume the gov- ernment of the Province, making such compensation to the Proprietaries as would be equitable, and permitting the inhabitants to enjoy under the new government the privileges that have been granted to them by and under your royal predecessors." This petition was sup- ported by others, signed, it was said, by more than three thousand five hundred persons, urging the king to grant the prayer of the Assembly.1 These petitions were signed by men of all parties, — by Quakers, by Germans, and by the Scotch-Irish settlers on the frontiers. The only organized resistance to the movement seems to have come from the Presbyterians of Eastern Pennsyl- vania. Some of the more prominent ministers sent a circular to their fellow-religionists throughout the Prov- ince advising them to cling to the charter and to sign petitions asking that it be retained. "It is not safe," they say, "to do things of such importance rashly. Our privileges (as Presbyterians) by this change may be greatly abridged, and cannot be enlarged. Our charter" (that is, the privileges secured by the charter)
1 It has often been said that there was no opposition shown to this measure by persons opposed to a change of government. But a large number of petitions asking that the Proprietary govern- ment should be retained will be found among the Penn MSS. in the collection of the Historical Society.
60 PETITION TO THE KING.
" is in danger by such a change, and let no one persuade you to the contrary." No doubt a keen sense of the position occupied by the Presbyterian Church under the royal governments of New York and Virginia had much to do with inspiring these sentiments.
It would seem that Dickinson was not present when these resolutions were adopted, and that the violent attack which he made on the proposed petition had hardly been anticipated. On the 24th of May the debate began ; and in reading the speeches of Dickin- son on the one side, and of Galloway on the other, of this great question, involving a change of the form of government, it is very clear that we shall look in vain in the proceedings of any deliberative assembly of the present day for so masterly a discussion of a subject so fundamental as this in all its bearings. Dickinson began by admitting all the serious evils which were said to have resulted from the administration of the Proprietary gov- ernment,— the inequality of taxation, the anomalous position of the governor, the evils which flowed from the obligation of the deputy to obey the instructions of the Proprietaries in England in governing the Province. But then he took the position which afterwards proved so damaging to his reputation when it was proposed to adopt independence as a remedy for admitted evils. He thought he foresaw greater evils in the change than those from which the Province was then suffering.1 His sagacity, founded upon a thorough knowledge of the
1 Consult a letter from Edward Rutledge to Jay (Correspondence of Jay, p. 67), "A plan of a confederation which Dickinson has drawn. It has the vice of all his productions to a considerable degree, — I mean the vice si refining too much"
DICKINSON OPPOSES THE PETITION. 61
aims of the British ministry, led him to the belief that it would be dangerous to place any confidence in them. His love of country, thus enlightened, made him, there- fore, shrink from trusting such a remedy. His natural hesitation, which he never quite overcame, proved in 1776 to be weakness ; but in 1764 it turned out to be the very highest wisdom, for the very evils which he predicted we should suffer from the acts of the ministry, could it get control here, showed themselves soon after in the arbitrary measures which precipitated the Revo- lution. Dickinson told the Assembly that the only question at issue was one of remedy, and he insisted that this was neither the time nor the way by which the remedy that was sought — that is, a royal govern- ment with the charter privileges reserved — could be ob- tained. He warned the Assembly that hitherto the very worst acts of the Proprietaries had been those in which they had been most strongly supported by the ministry ; that we were not likely to be treated with favor when we avowed ourselves, as we had always done, opposed to a method of granting supplies approved by the late and the present king ; and that it was unreasonable to sup- pose that we should be received on our terms under the king's government when we would not obey the king's commands. No one, he said, wished to come under the direct government of the king unless his privileges were preserved. He spoke of the danger of an established church and of a standing army, of the exceptionally favorable condition in which we had been placed by our charter, and of the folly of exposing ourselves to dangers from changes which we could not foresee, and which would render insecure those priceless privileges
62 DICKINSON'S SPEECH.
that had made Pennsylvania what she was in the eyes of the world. Finally, he asserted that the Assembly had no right, by any law, divine or human, to change the form of government without the formal assent of the people. In short, rather than be a revolutionist he had become a prophet of evil ; but all through it is clear that his motive was a strong love of country and fear for the future. He felt intensely the evils of the government under which he lived ; but, not seeing a remedy, he felt that we had
better
" bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of. ' '
After all, it is easier to destroy than to build up. This speech of Dickinson's has always appeared to me to be the strongest of all his productions : it seems impossible to escape from its logic. But the people of the Province at that time were in no humor to be con- vinced by logic that they might change for the worse. The government under which they lived denied them protection, as they thought, and they were suffering from the wild panic of an Indian invasion. The petition was adopted by the Assembly, only four members of that body voting against it. It was never presented to the king, no favorable occasion, in the opinion of the Provincial agents, occurring when its prayer was likely to be granted with the " charter privileges reserved." And here it may be again said that the prophecies which Dickinson had made concerning ministerial inter- ference here, in case opportunity offered, proved true. Less than three months passed before George Gren- ville proposed the enactment of the Stamp Act, and in less than eighteen months a congress of the Colonies
EFFECT OF THE DEBATE IN ENGLAND. 63
was assembled in New York to protest against that very interference which Dickinson's fears had antici- pated and against which the Assembly of the Province had so strenuously contended.
This debate, although it made no converts in the As- sembly, produced a profound impression, not only upon public opinion here, but also upon those members of the Penn family in England who, strong in ministerial support, had pursued so arbitrary and selfish a policy in the government of Pennsylvania. They discovered that those whom they had hitherto regarded as their strongest partisans did not hesitate to condemn that policy, although they might not be willing to join with Dr. Franklin and Mr. Galloway in encouraging a revo- lution in order to overturn the Proprietary government. They became more moderate in their pretensions after this display of the strength of the Colonists, and it is not unlikely that, if the claims of the Proprietaries in the coming struggle had not been identified with those of the ministry, some modus vivendi, at least for the time, might have been found. As it was, a blow against them was a blow against the ministry, although the majority of the Assembly professed itself willing to trust that very ministry with forming a government which should be satisfactory to Pennsylvania.
In those days the public was not admitted to listen to the debates, and of course there were no reporters. From the printed speeches of Dickinson on the one side and of Galloway on the other we derive all our knowledge of the discussion ; although it was asserted at the time that the printed speeches were not faithful transcripts of what was said. It is well, however, to
64 GALLOWAY'S SPEECH.
remember that there was once a period during which such a debate could take place in the legislature of Pennsylvania. Not only was Dickinson's speech a masterly one, worthy of the occasion, but also that of his opponent, Galloway, to judge from the printed copy, had merit of the highest order. He said everything that could be properly said in favor of the experiment which Dickinson considered so hazardous, and said it in the best possible style, showing a familiarity with the question in all its bearings which serves to give one a very good idea of the extent of the attainments of a man who ranked in those days as a lawyer of the highest class. Galloway had at least the advantage of a sympathetic audience, who fully believed with him that any change in the system of government must be an improvement on the old one.1 The interest which attaches to this debate in history is increased when we are told that the preface to Dickinson's speech was written by the Rev. Dr. Smith (the Provost), and that to Galloway's by Dr. Franklin. By many these prefaces have been thought quite to overshadow the speeches themselves. However, we have now the opportunity not only of seeing how this momentous occasion impressed the most conspicuous men in the Province, but also of knowing how the future then ap- peared to the sanguine temperament of Dr. Franklin, and of listening to the lessons of past experience taught by Dickinson.
* It must be said that Dickinson vehemently denied that the printed speech of Galloway was the one actually delivered by him. The only public men against whom Dickinson seems to have entertained a rancorous feeling were Galloway and John Adams.
CHAPTER IV.
FORERUNNERS OF THE REVOLUTION.
THE desire to change the Proprietary government was so strong and general that Dickinson, for a time at least, became so unpopular by advocating its reten- tion that he lost his seat in the Assembly, and did not regain it until 1770. Pending the result of the application to the Crown to resume the government of the Province there was comparative quiet, and few subjects of importance, at least of those which involved our relations with the mother-country, excited public attention. There seemed to be no occasion for com- plaint amidst the rejoicings which followed on the Peace of 1763. English colonists here fully shared the glory, as they had shared the labor and the danger, of the achievements which had made their country mistress of North America and of India and the arbiter of the destinies of Europe. This year of jubilee did not last long, however, and it became necessary to decide how the money-cost of all this glory was to be paid. The crisis was evidently approaching which had long been foreseen by the most sagacious men in the Colonies, when ministerial interference with our affairs would take the shape of extorting our money from us by imperial authority to be used for imperial purposes; in other words, of raising a revenue from the Colonies by imposing taxes upon them by act of Parliament.
5 65
66 DICKINSON AND THE SUGAR ACT.
The two measures by which this policy was publicly avowed were the Sugar Bill and the proposed Stamp Act. The announcement by the ministry of their in- tention was met by an immediate and energetic pro- test from nearly all the American Colonies ; and John Dickinson, whose predictions as to the folly of trusting to the ministry for relief had been fulfilled only too soon, was appealed to to lead the opposition to the prin- ciple of arbitrary taxation which underlay these two Acts of Parliament. On the I4th of March, 1764, there was reported to the House of Commons an act, com- monly called the "Sugar Act/' extending and perpetu- ating the English Navigation Acts. By it Great Britain was made the storehouse of the products of Asiatic, as it had long been of European, countries. This act in- creased the duty on sugar, and made various regula- tions intended to protect English manufactures sent to the Colonies ; in short, its object was to give a monop- oly of the Colonial commerce and production to the English trading classes, adopting an ingenious method of forcing the Colonies to pay tribute to the metrop- olis by making it the only market in which they could buy commodities the productions of any country in the world. It was asserted by the ministry that it was just that the revenue derived under this act from the Colonies should be used for imperial purposes. The important point connected with the proposed law was that it was the first in which the adoption of that policy was openly avowed.
At the same time that the Sugar Act was passed (and it met no opposition whatever), the House of Commons resolved " that it may be proper to charge
THE STAMP ACT. 67
certain stamp duties in the Colonies." Mr. Grenville, however, with proper caution, postponed any legislation on this latter proposition until it could be ascertained how it would be regarded in this country. The Colo- nial Assemblies at once took the alarm when the news reached them that these new methods of taxation had been proposed, and protested strongly against their adoption, the Assembly of Pennsylvania declaring " that, as they always had, so they always should think it their duty to grant aid to the Crown according to their abili- ties when required in the usual constitutional manner." At this time Mr. Dickinson, free from the anxieties and responsibilities of public life, determined to inter- pose. Like a vigilant sentinel, he saw, what many of his countrymen failed to see, the danger lurking in these two acts, and the fearful results that would follow if they should be allowed to be enforced without opposition. As the "Stamp Act" was not yet passed, he called at- tention to the provisions of the " Sugar Act," as a method of taxing us by act of Parliament. He printed a pamphlet in 1765 entitled "The Late Regulations respecting the British Colonies on the Continent of America considered." This pamphlet shows him to have acquired at that time as full a knowledge of the political economy of that day, as it affected the rela- tions between the Colonies and the mother-country, as his speech on the proposed change of government had shown familiarity with the constitutional and legal principles on which those Colonial relations had been built. With great skill he set himself to prove to his English readers, for whom his pamphlet was specially intended, that the metropolis would suffer far more from
68 DICKINSON'S VIEWS ON THESE ACTS.
the enforcement of the new regulations established by the "Sugar Act" than would the Colonies themselves. He pointed out that the only way by which money could be raised in the Colonies to pay for English manufac- tures was by encouraging their foreign commerce. The amount which they owed the English manufacturers was large, as they had been forced to buy exclusively from them, and the Colonies had no other means of satisfy- ing the debt. Our trade with Spain, Portugal, and the foreign plantations in the West Indies had hitherto enabled us to pay our debts to England in a certain roundabout way. Under the new act our foreign com- merce must cease, because we were forbidden to send our productions — flour, fish, timber, etc. — where they were needed, and where their price would enable us to pay our debts in England, the mother-country having little need of our staples. Everything that we produced that Great Britain chose to take must be sent to that kingdom only, although a higher price could be ob- tained for certain articles elsewhere, and everything we chose to import from Europe must first be shipped to England and thence reshipped to us. Mr. Dickinson's object was to show, what does not seem to have been very difficult, that, as all the profits of this grinding monopoly went to the English merchants and traders, it was extreme folly on their part to give up the trade, and that we had submitted in this country quietly to all this extortion because the British connection seemed valuable to us, as our trade under these restrictions certainly was to the commercial class in Great Britain. Speaking of the proposed Stamp Act, Mr. Dickinson scarcely refers in this pamphlet to the objections to
SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 69
which its enactment subsequently gave rise, but con- fines himself almost wholly to the discussion of its eco- nomic effects. He insists, curiously enough, that such was the scarcity of silver in the Colonies at that time that a sufficiently large sum of that metal to pay for the stamps and the duties levied upon the articles imported could not be procured here. If there be not some strange exaggeration in this statement, it is certainly a most striking illustration of the poverty of the country in this form of currency at that time. Fortunately, the Assembly had issued, at various times, paper obliga- tions, which in a certain way answered the purposes of a currency. This expedient mitigated to some ex- tent the suffering of the trading-classes here produced by the English regulations, and at the same time en- abled the people to purchase an increased amount of English manufactures. Mr. Dickinson, with great wis- dom, confines himself to describing the injury likely to be inflicted upon the English merchants and manufac- turers by the enforcement of this act, as he believed that their influence alone could bring about its repeal. In regard to the irritation inseparable from its enforce- ment here, especially the strong objections to the pro- visions giving jurisdiction to courts of admiralty acting without a jury, and converting the men-of-war on this station into court-houses and naval officers into judges for the trial of offences created by it, he knew perfectly well that the British public cared nothing, and there- fore he was silent about wrongs which we considered grievous.
The year during which it was proposed that the opinion of the Colonists concerning the policy of the
?o PARLIAMENTARY CLAIMS OF TAXATION.
proposed Stamp Act should be taken was about ex- piring when the ministry, with very little opposition in the House of Commons and none whatever in the House of Lords, but in the face of the vigorous and unanimous protest of the Assemblies of the Colonies, enacted that measure into a law on the 2 ad of March, 1765. As the political education of the American people made great progress during the year that followed, and as John Dickinson was one of their chiefest and most trusted leaders and teachers at that time, it may be useful to recall some of the stages of that progress.
We have now arrived at that period in our history when the discussion of the fundamental principle of English liberty on this continent, the right of the English Parlia- ment to tax the Colonies for imperial purposes, was begun. The question, of course, at that time was not the amount of money involved in our loss of trade or in the payment for stamps, but the right of Parliament to lay a burden upon us for such purposes, — in other words, how far the alleged omnipotence of Parliament extended, — whether, as it was afterwards said, it ex- tended to all cases whatever.
It is hardly necessary to recall the excitement which prevailed throughout the Colonies during the year in which we were threatened with the enactment of the Stamp Act. In striking contrast with our alarm and indignation was the absolute indifference which was shown in London in regard to its consequences. This act, which is now recognized by English historians as having been the most important and far-reaching in its results of any that, was ever passed by Parliament, ex- cited far less interest in England than the controversy
THE STAMP ACT CONGRESS.
between John Wilkes and the Court, which was then at its height. Here it was the theme of multitudinous essays in the newspapers and in pamphlets, the writers all agreeing that great evils would result from its enact- ment, while each had a different theory to explain how its illegal and unconstitutional provisions were to be re- sisted. The discussions concerning the Stamp Act were typical of the differences of opinion, if not of the dis- sensions, which prevailed among us more or less during the Revolution. There was no dispute about the nature of our grievances, but there was a constant controversy as to the best methods of redressing them. Fortu- nately, as a means of relief, the Americans took a course which had in their previous history proved, it is true, unsatisfactory, but towards which they now turned instinctively, as they have done ever since in times of supreme danger. They determined to seek the counsel of the united Colonies and to abide by it. The prop- osition that delegates from the different Colonies should meet and consider the probable effect of the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act on the Colonies came from Massa- chusetts, and it was soon after agreed to by nine of the Colonial Assemblies. The common watchword at that time was the denial of the right of Parliament to tax America for imperial purposes ; but how this opin- ion was to be enforced in the face of the well-known maxim as to the omnipotence of Parliament was a prob- lem which it was left to the wisdom of the united Col- onies in Congress to solve. As to Pennsylvania, her position, as shown by the resolutions adopted by her Assembly when accepting the invitation to be present at the Congress, was somewhat peculiar. She declared
72 POSITION OF PENNSYLVANIA.
emphatically that, whatever might be the abstract right of Parliament to levy taxes upon the Colonies, there was no justification, so far as she was concerned, for its exercise at the present juncture. "This Province," said the Assembly, " whenever required by his Majesty for carrying on military operations for the defence of America, had most cheerfully contributed its full pro- portion of men and money, and that in future, whenever called upon in a constitutional manner, it will be their duty to make liberal grants of men and money, not only for the defence and security but for the other public service of the British American Colonies."
The Congress met at New York on the 5th of October, 1764, nine Colonies being represented. Mr. Dickinson, as leader of the opposition to the Stamp Act in Pennsylvania, and as the man above all others in the country who was most familiar with the principle involved therein, was one of the delegates from this Province. His colleagues were Mr. Joseph Fox, who was Speaker of the House of Assembly, and Messrs. Bryan and Morton.
The Stamp Act Congress was not an harmonious body, and its meeting took place at a time when the general discontent did not demand immediate active resistance to the measures of the ministry. Unfortu- nately, as with the meetings of all the representative Assemblies which were held prior to the Revolution, the people were excluded from its deliberations : hence we know little or nothing of the discussions which took place, or of the views held by the different members, except so far as they may be gathered from the meagre account of their proceedings which they saw fit to
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 73
publish. From this source we learn that the debate on the nature of the resistance to be offered lasted eleven days ; that it was at times very violent ; that the presiding officer of the Congress was Mr. Timothy Ruggles, a Tory of the Tories, who refused to sign the report of its proceedings, and who became a brig- adier-general in the armies of the king during the Revolution. Governor Golden of New York, where the Congress met, regarded its assemblage as illegal, and he avowed his determination to enforce the law, and to call in the regiments of General Gage, then stationed at New York, if necessary, to aid him. We learn, further, that in the end the delegates of six Colonies only out of nine were willing to express their approval of the very temperate resolutions which were proposed. It was clear that a common ground of opposition to the ministerial measures would be found with difficulty. The fame of Mr. Dickinson as a student of constitutional history had evidently reached the Congress : he soon found himself a leader in this the earliest of our national Assemblies. He was ap- pointed to prepare the resolutions which should set forth the opinions of the Congress, and he tried hard to solve the problem which confronted them, how they could escape taxation without denying the omnipotence of Parliament.1 By the eighth resolution it was asserted that the power of granting supplies to the Crown in Great Britain belonged solely to the Commons, because these supplies were wholly the gifts of the representa- tives of the people, and hence it involved an inconsist- ency on the part of the English Commons to give to 1 See the original draft, as prepared by him, Appendix I.
74 DICKINSON'S THEORY OF TAXATION.
his Majesty that which was not their own, — namely, the property of the Colonists. This refined and subtle view of the power of taxation was not original with Mr. Dickinson : it had been first put forward by Mr. Dulany of Maryland some years before, and it was thought a point so well taken by some of our friends in England that it was afterwards usecj (as we have said) by Lord Chatham as an argument in his great speech in the House of Lords denying the right of England to tax America. This seems now rather a narrow foundation to bear the weight of so imposing a claim as that of the imperial power of taxation; but it seems to have been adopted, with some other doubtful conclusions, because the Congress insisted upon resting their case alone upon the fundamental rights of the Colonists guaranteed by English law and their own charters, and not upon any theory of the natural rights of man.
Shortly afterwards the Rockingham ministry came into office, and the Stamp Act, after a violent struggle in the House of Commons, was repealed on the 226. of February, 1766. The motive of this action was undoubtedly the absolute impossibility of enforcing its provisions, rather than any conviction on the part of the House of Commons of its impolicy or injustice.
In recalling the vast services which Mr. Dickinson rendered to the country by his opposition to the Stamp Act, there is one peculiarity of his conduct which should be noticed, for it was characteristic of his reverence for law, as well as of his devotion to well-settled principles of English liberty. He neither joined in nor approved of the noisy and revolutionary proceedings which were
DECLARATORY CLAUSE. 75
then common in certain parts of the country as modes of testifying the determination of the people that the proposed law should not go into effect. On the con- trary, when it was proposed at a meeting of the bar of Philadelphia that they should transact their business without using the stamps which the law prescribed, he denounced the proposition as unbecoming in such per- sons and even revolutionary in its example and tenden- cies.
Accompanying the repeal of the Stamp Act was the famous declaratory resolve which it had been necessary to make part of the repealing legislation in order to secure its adoption by Parliament and save the pride of the ministry while yielding. In this resolve the right of Parliament to tax the Colonies "in all cases what- soever" was asserted in emphatic terms. Little heed was given either in England or in this country, in the midst of the general rejoicings and congratulations with which the news of the repeal of the act was received, to the great significance of this declaratory resolve. It was soon found, however, that this reservation of the right of Parliament to tax the Colonies for imperial purposes was not intended to be mere brutum fulmen, but was to be used when a more convenient season should arrive for its exercise. For the present, a gen- eral outward calm and tranquillity prevailed, although the far-seeing in both countries were husbanding their resources for another stage of the controversy. It seemed, indeed, that all the petitions, remonstrances, and opposition from every quarter with which the en- forcement of the Stamp Act had been met had not en- lightened the ministry as to the true ground of our
76 QUESTION AS TO METHOD OF TAXATION.
resistance. It was evidently supposed that the objection on the part of the Colonies was to the method rather than to the right of taxation. Hence the Rockingham ministry, which had repealed the Stamp Act, did not hesitate to approve the scheme of Mr. Charles Town- shend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for raising a revenue for imperial purposes, and principally for the support of the royal officers in America, by imposing duties on tea, glass, paints, etc.
The controversy about the Stamp Act brought out in striking contrast the differences of opinion not merely as to the nature of the grievances from which we were suffering, but also as to the proper measures of redress to be taken, which prevailed in New England and in the Middle and Southern Colonies. The standard of rightful government in New England, as we have so often said, was its conformity with what was called " natural equity/' by which was really meant a system of self-government which should be as little as pos- sible under the control of the English Parliament. The other Colonies at that time professed absolute respect for English law when constitutionally adminis- tered among them. They felt that if they suffered from unjust and oppressive laws they should not, in order to obtain relief, precipitate a revolution, but should adopt, in the beginning at least, the old English method of petition and remonstrance, not asking for redress as a favor, but insisting upon it as a right under the law, and should persist in their demands until no re- source was left but open rebellion. Their attitude in the mean time should be, it was contended, that of Englishmen in all similar circumstances, — petitioners
FOUNDATION OF THE RIGHT TO TAX. 77
in arms. They looked with horror upon the acts of violence committed against governors, judges, and other dignitaries, of which the people of Massachusetts, stim- ulated by the extraordinary rhetoric of their leaders, had been guilty.
The New England people, or rather the ministers and politicians their leaders, talked much in the Stamp- Act Congress about the speculative political ideas of Sidney and of Locke as forming the basis of their right to resist arbitrary government ; the delegates from the other Colonies followed the example of their ancestors in 1628, who when they adopted the Petition of Right in the House of Commons affirmed with the great fathers of English liberty that certain great principles of government, including the principle which in certain aspects was the most important of all, — the claim to be free from arbitrary taxation, — formed an essential part of " the ancient and undoubted rights and privileges of the people of this realm." The first party claimed to follow the light of nature ; the other, to be guided by the lamp of experience. The one strove to throw aside all the restraints of English law when it seemed to justify the exercise of Parliamentary government over the Colonies ; the other sought to find in that law itself justification for the resistance which was made to the enforcement of arbitrary acts. The one saw no way of effective relief save in a radical revolution which should bring about a popular form of government ; the other thought it a duty (in which opinion it was supported by all the English political traditions) to consider rebellion, war, and revolution as the ultima ratio, to be resorted to only when all other remedies for the evil had proved
78 RESOLUTIONS OF STAMP ACT CONGRESS.
unavailing. The party of law and order and of a legal resistance founded upon a reasonable basis, as opposed to that which claimed that Americans x " had rights ante- cedent to all earthly government, that cannot be re- pealed or restrained by human law, rights derived from the great Legislator of the universe," prevailed in the Stamp Act Congress. It should be remembered to the perpetual honor of John Dickinson's memory that if he was not the discoverer of the principle that there are bounds even to the alleged omnipotence of an English Parliament, he was at least the pioneer in applying that discovery to our own relief, by insisting that grants to the Crown by the Commons were gifts of their own money, over which they had absolute control, and not the product of a compulsory taxation over which they had none.
The English ministry was probably misled by the strong emphasis which had been laid here during the controversies concerning the Stamp Act upon the alleged distinction between external and internal taxa- tion. We had refused to submit to the latter, but admitted that the former might be binding upon the whole empire as a commercial regulation. In form the duties levied on paints, glass, tea, etc., were undoubt- edly such a regulation; but it was at once contended here that, in point of fact and of principle, this was as much an exercise of the alleged right of Parlia- mentary taxation for the purpose of raising a revenue for imperial purposes as the Stamp Act itself. Al- though it was passed by the opponents of the Stamp
1 John Adams.
NON-IMP OR TA TION A GREEMENT. 79
Act, and by the Rockingham ministry, who professed to be our friends, the act met at once with opposition here. Late in October, 1767, it was denounced by a public meeting in Boston, which suggested a non-importation agreement as the best means of rendering its opera- tions ineffective. These agreements were favorite ex- pedients for manifesting political discontent in those days, but, as they were voluntary, their obligation sat somewhat loosely upon those who signed them. The truth is, that those who were most decided in oppo- sition to the course of the ministry were somewhat puzzled as to the plan they should adopt to exhibit the earnestness of their discontent. They had tried, in the case of the Stamp Act, the effect of a Congress of the Colonies, but it appeared that such a body could be re- lied upon only to express the united opinion of America on one point, — namely, that grants of money to the Crown were gifts, and not taxes in the ordinary sense, levied by general legislation. The prospect of greater unity in another Congress was not very promising : so that the weak expedient of a voluntary non-importa- tion agreement, to be signed in all the Colonies, was resorted to.
While the leaders of the opposition throughout the country were doubtful and hesitating, there appeared in the Pennsylvania Chronicle for the 2d of December, 1767, the first of a series of letters on the political situation, afterwards known as the " Farmer's Letters." The first letter was dated on the 7th of November, the anniversary of the day upon which William of Orange had landed in England, a day of ill omen to those who the Colonists contended were governing them in the
THE FARMER'S LETTERS.
same arbitrary manner as that in which James II. had governed their forefathers. The letters, fourteen in number, followed one another in quick succession, and they were read by men of all classes and opinions throughout the continent as no other work of a political kind had been thitherto read in America. It was, of course, soon known that John Dickinson was their au- thor, and people remembered that he was the person who had formulated what was a genuine Bill of Rights in the Stamp Act Congress. The more these letters were read, the more convinced people became that in the comprehensive survey they took of our political rela- tions with the mother-country, especially as these were x affected by the last obnoxious act of Parliament, and in the plans which were proposed to remedy the evil, Mr. Dickinson had struck the true key-note of the opposi- tion to the ministerial measures. He appeared at this crisis^ as he did in the Stamp Act Congress, as the leader and guide in the controversy. From this time until the Declaration of Independence the Pennsyl- vania idea, which was embodied by Mr. Dickinson in these Farmer's Letters, " controlled the destinies of the country;" and Mr. Bancroft only does justice to Mr. Dickinson's position when he recognizes fully his com- manding influence during that period. We may say, with pardonable pride (and it is one of those truths which many of our historians have managed in various ways to relegate to obscurity), that, as the leading spirit in the Stamp Act Congress, Dickinson gave form and color to the agitation in this country which brought about the repeal of that act, and that the arguments by which the claim of the ministry to tax us for revenue
INFLUENCE OF THESE LETTERS. 81
by such an act of Parliament as that levying duties on glass, paints, etc. was answered in the " Farmer's Letters" first convinced the whole body of our country- men, groping blindly for a cure for their grievances, that there was a legal remedy, and then forced the ministry to consent in a measure to the demand for a repeal of some of its most obnoxious provisions. It is worth re- marking that when the ministry yielded at all it yielded to argument, and not to the boastful threats which were so common. The " Farmer's Letters" gave courage and force to those who in February denounced the law in Pennsylvania ; they formed the mainspring of the movement which resulted in the circular letter sent by the legislature of Massachusetts on the lyth of that month to the Assemblies of the other Colonies; in short, they had the rare good fortune not only of con- vincing those who suffered that the remedy was in their own hands, but also of persuading those who had the power to abandon, or at least to modify, their arbitrary measures. The publication of these letters and the in- fluence they had in preparing the minds of the people for the approaching crisis form, in my opinion, a most important era in our Revolutionary history, and for that reason they deserve a careful examination in any story of Mr. Dickinson's life.
In these letters Mr. Dickinson appears as a states- man, discussing the questions in controversy, not on speculative grounds, as was the habit of many writers of that day, — men who had very little knowledge of and still less reverence for positive law, — but as one who firmly believed in the traditions of English liberty, and who thought that English law rightly interpreted by
6
82 MR. DICKINSON'S POSITION.
English history was the basis of the freest political condition of which the human race up to that time had shown itself capable. He points out specifically, one by one, the grievances complained of as violations of law, and then treats of the remedy. He writes not as an angry controversialist, but as a judicious counsellor and guide, free from the slightest heat or partisan excitement, treating the subject with a certain calm dignity and self-composure which seem to suggest that he can offer a remedy for the evils from which the people around him are suffering, unknown to helpless and self-seeking politicians. His attitude recalls the picture drawn by Virgil as he compares the power of a great orator with that of Neptune subduing the angry waves :
. . . " Quum saepe coorta est
Seditio, saevitque animis ignobile vulgus ;
lamque faces et saxa volant ; furor arma ministrat ;
Turn, pietate gravem ac meritis si forte virum quern
Conspexere, silent, adrectisque auribus adstant ;
Ille regit dictis animos et pectora mulcet. ' '
Mr. Dickinson begins these grave essays with an air of simplicity as charming as it is calculated to attract the attention of the reader. " I am a farmer," he says, " settled, after a variety of fortunes, near the banks of the river Delaware, in the Province of Pennsylvania. I received a liberal education, and have been engaged in the busy scenes of life, but am now convinced that a man may be as happy without bustle as with it. Being generally master of my time, I spend a good deal of it in my library, which I think the most valuable part of my small estate. I have acquired, I believe, a greater
HIS ARGUMENT. 83
knowledge of history and of the laws and constitution of my country than is generally attained by men of my class," etc. He then explains the nature of the contro- versy with the mother-country, making it so clear that the points in dispute are comprehensible by a child. Mr. Dickinson always possessed the rare faculty of so stating a legal proposition in ordinary language that his conclusions were as easily understood by one who was ignorant in technical matters as by the profes- sional reader. The manner in which he discusses in these letters historically the nature of English liberty secured and guarded by law, and the extraordinary steps which had been taken by the ministry in viola- tion of the spirit, if not of the letter, of that law, by suspending the exercise of the legislative powers of the New York Assembly because it had declined to vote for supplying the troops quartered there with " salt, pepper, and vinegar," is a striking illustration of his skill. He dwells on these details in the begin- ning simply to catch the attention of the reader, so as to point out the lesson which all these " Farmers' Letters" sought to enforce. It was this: "If an As- sembly may be legally deprived in such a case of the privilege of legislation, why may it not with equal reason be deprived of every other privilege?" Thus the case of the New York Assembly, although it seemed to involve only so trivial a matter as the supply of "salt, pepper, and vinegar" to the soldiers, really raised the question how far and under what limitations power existed in the Colonies to legislate concerning their in;^ ternal affairs. Passing then to the claim of taxation, he does not attempt to show that Parliament has no
84 THE ARGUMENT CONTINUED.
right to tax us because such a claim is against the law of nature or of " natural equity," a doctrine constantly preached by agitators, clerical and lay, in New Eng- land, but he maintains, what is more to the purpose, by an examination of the English statutes, that not one can be found, until the Stamp Act of Mr. Grenville, by which taxes for the raising of an imperial revenue from the Colonies are levied. He insists that the act levying duties on paper, glass, paints, etc., although in form for the regulation of trade, is in point of fact an inge- nious contrivance to tax the people here for imperial purposes. "We must have," he says, "paper and glass and tea, and we must by existing laws import them from England alone. Once admit that Great Britain may levy duties on articles of necessity, which we are forced by law to import from her, under the plea that such a proceeding is a commercial regulation, then she will not be restrained from levying what duties she thinks proper on all articles which she prohibits us to manufacture, as well as those required for daily use, which we must take from her." As to our method of asserting our rights, he says, with an elevation of sentiment which reminds one of Edmund Burke more than of any other political writer, "The cause of liberty is a cause of too much dignity to be sullied by turbulence and tumult. It ought to be maintained in a manner suitable to her nature. Those who engage in it should breathe a sedate yet fervent spirit, animating them to actions of prudence, justice, modesty, bravery, humanity, and magnanimity." He shrinks, evidently with terror, from speaking of what may be the consequences of the persistent refusal of England to change her oppressive measures : his loyal
THE "ULTIMA RATIO" SUGGESTED. 85
heart evidently looked forward to the possibility of armed resistance very much as we may suppose an old Roman to have regarded the crime of parricide, the very thought of which inspired such horror in the minds of the ancients that it was not considered neces- sary to forbid its commission by formal law. "If," he says, "at length it becomes undoubted that an invet- erate resolution is formed to annihilate the liberties of the governed, English history affords frequent exam- ples of resistance by force. What particular circum- stances will in any future case justify such resistance can never be ascertained until they happen. Perhaps it may be allowable to, say, generally, that it can never be justifiable until the people are fully convinced that any further submission will be destructive to their happiness."
But he trusts that we are still far away from the ultima ratio, and that we may never have occasion to appeal to it. After showing in the most striking manner the nature of our wrongs, the letters turn gladly to the remedy that lies open to us. That remedy is based upon a cultivation of the spirit of conciliation on both sides, and Mr. Dickinson urges again and again upon his English readers the folly of their policy, by showing them the value of the American Colonies to them, and especially how the trade and wealth of the English merchants are bound up in the adoption of a liberal policy towards us. This is one of the most interesting and important topics discussed in these letters, and the subject is treated with elaborate skill, leading to con- vincing conclusions drawn from our history. It must not be forgotten that prior to the Revolution an im-
86 OBDURACY OF THE MINISTRY.
pression widely prevailed among the most thoughtful of our own people, as well as among our friends in England, that if the English people could be made to understand the frightful losses they would suffer in case of a war in which we should be fighting for our independence, or even during a short interruption of the trade between the two countries, they would force the government to yield rather than run the risk of the consequences. Such, undoubtedly, was the opinion of Dickinson, and in this way is to be explained his constant advice to Englishmen to adopt a policy of conciliation. It is very true that Dickinson and his friends were sadly mistaken and disappointed in their hopes and calculations. They could not have foreseen that the heart of George III. would grow harder and more obdurate in spite of the appeals of those who had been his loyal subjects here, and who desired to remain such if he would rule them as they had been ruled previous to the Peace of 1763, They could not have believed that the pride of the British House of Commons would prove so unyielding that neither threats nor a spirit of conciliation nor an appeal to self-interest could move it to redress our grievances. Still, his arguments and appeals to the justice of the English government, conceived in a lofty spirit of con- ciliation, are characteristic of the man, and deserve to be remembered as an expression of the ardent desire for a complete reconciliation which prevailed here in 1768. This feeling was so general that even Dr. Franklin in London, who had had so many proofs of the indifference and contempt with which the representa- tions of the Colonies in England were regarded, shared
THE LETTERS REPRINTED IN EUROPE. 87
it. He thought the appeal of the Farmer to English- men so irresistible that, although no friend of Dickin- son's, he arranged that these letters should be re- printed in London. He seemed to think that their publication there might enlighten the ignorance of the English public on Colonial affairs, an ignorance which had been found thus far invincible, and that the letters might do some good, even if they merely showed errors and prejudices on the part of the Americans which might be corrected. They were shortly afterwards translated into French, and did much to enlighten the publicists on the Continent concerning the controversy. The practical value of the Farmer's Letters consisted, therefore, not in mere denunciation of the measures of the ministry, as was the case with so much that was printed at the time, but in the legal and peaceful methods which they recommended to the Colonists in order that the evils from which they suffered might be remedied. It was not enough to convince our own countrymen that our quarrel was just, but it was neces- sary also to persuade those who governed us in Eng- land to see the matter in the same light as we did. To do so it would have been quite out of place to make use of an a priori argument to prove what the relations between a metropolis and her colonies ought to be. What we had to do was to show that what we contended for was precisely what the English had always recognized as our true and normal relation. " Colonies," said Dickinson, in absolute conformity with the political economy of the time, " have been settled by the nations of Europe (in modern times) for the purposes of trade. These purposes were to be
33 THE ENGLISH COLONIAL SYSTEM.
attained by the colonies sending to the mother-country those things which she did not produce herself, and by supplying themselves from her with those things which they wanted. These were the rational objects in the commencement of our Colonies." He finds no fault with this policy, narrow as it is, and he strives to prove, by extracts from the works of all the writers of author- ity on the English colonial system, that such is the ex- isting colonial policy, and that it ought to be the theo- retically perfect condition of the relation. Whatever, therefore, is destructive of the trade and commerce thus established must necessarily be injurious to the prosperity of the metropolis. He does not hesitate to maintain that the present wealth and importance of England are due to her colonies. The familiarity which he shows with the subject he is discussing seems very remarkable, and is in striking contrast with that of most of the Colonial writers of the time. He draws the attention of his English readers to the abuse of certain unquestioned prerogatives of the Crown as having proved in the history of their own country acts of unmitigated tyranny, such as the power of the Crown to create peers, and the power of the House of Com- mons to force the other branches of the legislature to adopt their grant of supplies without amendment; and he uses these illustrations for the purpose of con- vincing Englishmen how easy it is to turn what might be legal as a trade regulation into an act which might be wholly illegal as a mode of raising revenue. With that firm grasp of the underlying principle of a ques- tion which was a distinguishing characteristic of his intelligence, he sees in the apparent insignificance of
GENERAL DRIFT OF THE LETTERS. 89
the impost, so far as future dangers are concerned, the most alarming feature of the law. He regards this as the most enticing bait of the trap into which we are asked deliberately to walk. He warns his countrymen against it. " For who are a free people ?" he asks. " Not those over whom government is reasonably and equitably exercised, but those who live under a govern- ment so constitutionally checked and controlled that proper provision is made against its ever being other- wise exercised." Has there ever been a clearer defi- nition of constitutional rule? He insists that " no free people ever existed or can exist without keeping (to use a common but a strong expression) the purse-strings in their own hands. Where this is the case they have a constitutional check upon the administration, which may thereby be brought into order without violence."
Such is an imperfect sketch of the great work of John Dickinson, — the famous " Farmer's Letters," which con- tain more practical and applied political philosophy than is to be found in many elaborate treatises. To most Americans they became, until the beginning of the war, a genuine political text-book, and their maxims were received with absolute confidence. Like the writing's
o
of Burke, of which these letters constantly remind us, they form a great storehouse of political wisdom from which all those who would vindicate the American Revo- lution on the ground of its conformity with the maxims of the English law must draw their arguments and il- lustrations. They teach us that under that law there was such a thing as constitutional resistance, and tell us how and when that resistance was to be made. They are as far removed from recommending submission to
9° TEACH CONSTITUTIONAL RESISTANCE.
wrong as the wildest harangues of the New England zealots, or as the sober Petition of Right which the loyal subjects of Charles I. presented to him in 1628. Their object was not to provide a specific remedy for the injuries complained of by the adoption of the act levying duties on glass, paints, etc., other than the non- importation and non-exportation agreement, which it was seen must prove in the long run ineffective, but to cultivate a habit of constitutional resistance to oppres- sive acts of Parliament by pointing out exactly what our rights were and what measures of redress were open to us. The conviction of the Farmer was that such an attitude persistently maintained, according to all the precedents of English history, would accomplish the object he had in view.
The fame of Mr. Dickinson as the author of these letters soon became widely spread, not only on this continent but in Europe, and, what is more to the pur- pose, his conclusions were generally adopted by his countrymen. The letters were read as they appeared, at intervals, with the utmost eagerness by that large number of intelligent persons throughout the Colonies who were profoundly anxious about the result of the controversy concerning the ministerial measures, and they doubtless gave the main impulse to the movement which, beginning with the circular letter of Massachu- setts in February, 1768, gained strength every year until it found full expression in the first Continental Congress of 1 774. There was a peculiarity about these letters which added much to their popularity, and that was their opportuneness. They crystallized opposition
SETTLE THE NATURE OF THE RESISTANCE. 91
and made the discontented agree upon a common rem- edy. For a time all threats of armed resistance looking towards a project of independence ceased. Even men of the most advanced opinions thought it expedient to try the Farmer's way before moving forward in their own. The legislature of Massachusetts, at the very time that it was protesting against the acts of the ministry, did not hesitate to write to Lord Hillsborough, the Secretary for the Colonies in 1 768, that they "would not take independency if offered to them." The prob- ability is that the ministry was lulled into a sense of fancied security by these avowals and others like them expressed in the different Colonies, and that it sup- posed, from the very moderate language used, that there would be no forcible resistance. Not only did people both in this country and in England do justice to the statesmanlike view of the position which Dickinson had taken in these letters, but there seemed also a general agreement that he had adopted the right method in stating our grievances and insisting that no Englishman could deny the lawfulness of the opposition which he had recommended. Our friends in England, whose aid he had always invoked, regarded with peculiar satisfac- tion the conciliatory tone which he had adopted, so dif- ferent in its spirit from that of the ordinary threats, protests, and resolutions by which the British public had been appealed to. So general was the approval of his course, that at a town meeting held in Boston on the 2ist of March, 1768, it was voted "that the thanks of the town be given to the ingenious author of a course of letters, published at Philadelphia and in this place, signed 'A FARMER,' wherein the rights of
92 THANKS OF THE TOWN OF BOSTON.
the American subjects are clearly stated and fully vindi- cated ; and Dr. Benjamin Church, John Hancock, Sam- uel Adams, Dr. Joseph Warren, and John Rowe are appointed members of a committee to prepare and pub- lish such a letter of thanks." These letters were con- sidered "very wild" by Lord Hillsborough ; says Mr. Bancroft, " Many called them treasonable and seditious, yet Edmund Burke approved their principle. Trans- lated into French, they were much read in Parisian salons ; their author was compared with Cicero ; Vol- taire joined the praise of the farmer of Pennsylvania and that of the Russians who aspired to liberate Greece." x
xAt home Dickinson was the recipient of all the public honors which his grateful countrymen could bestow upon him. He was made Doctor of Laws by the College of New Jersey at Princeton, and in his diploma he was called by a title of which he was always very proud, — "The Pennsylvania Farmer." He was made a mem- ber of " Fort St. David's Company," now " the State in Schuylkill," the oldest of all our social organizations, in a way peculiarly gratify- ing to his feelings. On May 12, 1768, fourteen gentlemen, members of the Society of Fort St. David's, waited upon John Dickinson, and presented an address (from which the following extracts are taken) enclosed in a box of heart of oak. " We, members of the ' Governor and Company of Fort St. David's,' who are indebted to you for your most excellent and generous vindication of liberties dearer to iis than our lives, beg leave to render our heartiest thanks, and to admit you as a member of this Society." Among other things, they say, "You have penetrated to the foundations of the Constitution, have poured the clearest light on the most important points, hitherto involved in darkness bewildering even the learned, and have established with amazing force and plainness of argument the true distinctions and grand principles that will fully instruct ages yet unborn what rights > belong to them and the best method of defending them." It was pleasant for Mr. Dickinson to feel that he had made the mysteries of constitutional law plain to these patriotic fishermen and lovers of
GIVES GREAT OFFENCE IN ENGLAND. 93
The immediate outcome of the "Farmer's Letters," as we have said, was the stricter observance of the non-importation and non-exportation agreement which they recommended, and renewed petitions to the min- istry for the repeal of the acts levying duties. On the 2Oth of February, before the course which was to be pursued by the other Colonies was known, the Assembly of Pennsylvania instructed its agents in London to co-operate with those of the other Colonies there in asking for the repeal of these acts. The legis- lature of Massachusetts went still further: it not only petitioned the ministry for the repeal, but sent a cir- cular letter to the other Colonies denouncing those laws as inequitable, and especially complaining of the dis- position proposed to be made of the taxes levied by them. This circular gave great offence in England: the governors of the different Colonies were com- manded by Lord Hillsborough to use " their utmost influence to defeat this flagitious attempt to disturb the public peace," etc. If such an appeal should prove vain, then the governors were commanded to prorogue or dissolve the Assemblies. This order of Lord Hilis- borough's was sent, among others, to the governor of Pennsylvania ; but the patriots in the Assembly did not fail to remind his lordship " that by their charter and laws they had a right to sit on their own adjournments, and that the governor had no constitutional right to prorogue or dissolve them, and that it was their un- doubted right to correspond with the representatives of the freemen of any of his Majesty's Colonies in
good cheer, although his modesty shrank from the extravagant terms in which their approval was expressed.
94 CIRCULAR LETTER OF MASSACHUSETTS.
America relative to grievances which might affect the general welfare of the Colonies." Two things are to be remarked concerning this spirited answer of the Assembly : first, the stupid ignorance of the English authorities as to the actual conditions of the govern- ment of one of the principal Colonies ; and, secondly, the vast superiority of Penn's charter to the charters of the other Colonies, consisting in the power which the Assembly possessed to assert popular rights with- out any fear of punishment. This was a peculiarity of the utmost value, and much insisted upon, as we shall see, when a certain party in the Province, urging the abolition of the charter, spoke of it as oligarchical or even despotic in its character. Meantime, the agita- tion was kept up in Pennsylvania. In April, 1/68, a great meeting was held in Philadelphia, in which Mr. Dickinson explained very clearly the political condition and advocated with great force the adoption of the non-importation and non-exportation agreement. This agreement was at once signed by all the large im- porters and merchants here and in all the principal towns of the continent. In May the Pennsylvania Assembly adopted a petition to the king, which was drawn up by no less a person than Chief Justice Allen (who held his office by royal authority), and it bears many marks of the collaboration of Dickinson, who was not at that time a member of the Assembly. The petition is remarkable for the force with which it insists that recent legislation had made an unfavorable discrim- ination in favor of the other subjects of the empire as compared with the American Colonists ; but it avoids any reference to the inexpediency of the revenue act,
THE MINISTRY AND THE CIRCULAR LETTER. 95
lest it should appear for a moment that its constitution- ality was admitted. By such painstaking care and labor was the work of our fathers in building up our liberties on a sure foundation done. And it should never be forgotten that the master-workmen in this great enter- prise, whether we have been since taught to call them Whio-s or Tories, patriots or loyalists, proved them- selves worthy of upholding those traditions of English liberty in which they had been nurtured. They all stood in those days in the same rank, — Chew, Gallo- way, Allen and his sons, the Tilghmans, Edward Ship- pen, and George Ross, shoulder to shoulder with Dick- inson, Reed, Clymer, Franklin, and McKean.
The feeling towards England during the summer of 1768 was intensely hostile, and in that country people became more and more convinced that the only way of stopping the complaints of the disaffected was to send a fleet to reduce the people of Boston, at least, to reason. The ministry seems to have laid particular stress upon the refusal by the Massachusetts legislature to rescind the circular letter which it had addressed to the different Colonies. That refusal was the signal for the outburst of the long-pent-up anger of the ministry, and the legislature was forthwith dissolved. Feeling itself strongly supported by public opinion at home, and quite sure of its ability to master the situation by a display of force, the ministry determined to carry out its policy at all risks. The non-importation and non- exportation agreement not having proved as effective in certain parts of the country as had been hoped, owing to the selfishness or disaffection of many, the Colonists paid, amidst much grumbling, the duties on
96 TROOPS SENT TO BOSTON.
glass, paper, paints, and tea, because they were articles of prime necessity. The government at home had no better term with which to qualify the discontent which prevailed than "the insolence of the town of Boston." A vessel of war was ordered to Boston harbor to pro- tect the custom-house officers; two regiments under General Gage were sent thither (a force afterwards largely increased) to preserve order; threats of changing the charter were made, and it was proposed to remove to England for trial those persons who were charged with certain offences against the Crown.
Thus there was a perpetual irritation kept up be- tween the representatives of the English government in Boston and the townspeople. Nothing, of course, could be more offensive to a population bred in habits of law and order on all subjects other than those which were political, than to find their town in what is called in modern phrase "a state of siege." It was galling beyond measure to these sons of the Puritans to discover that they were guarded by soldiers on land, and that their trade was watched by armed ves- sels in the bay. Their leaders had been taught by woful experience that resistance, unless they could unite the force of the continent for that purpose, would be idle. They refrained, therefore, from any overt act of opposition, but the bitterness and dis- content grew stronger every day. At last (in July, 1769) that portion of this hotly-contested act which imposed import duties on paper, glass, and paints was repealed by Parliament, leaving in force only that which levied a tax on tea, which was reduced to three- pence a pound. The object was simply to maintain
THE PORT CLOSED. 97
the principle of taxation, and this was the least tan- talizing and vexatious way of doing it that could be found. The details of the shipment of the tea by the East India Company to Boston, and its destruction there, are familiar, and it is therefore not necessary to repeat them.1
In consequence of this act, Parliament, with the gen- eral approval of the English public, directed that the port of Boston should be closed, that the town should be declared in a state of rebellion, and that an in- creased military force should be stationed there. Not a whisper of conciliation came from England at this time: the object of these measures was not compen- sation to the East India Company, but the punishment of Boston for what was then commonly called " its in- solence in permitting the destruction of the tea."
In the mean time there was comparative quiet in the other Colonies, and in many of them, doubtless, it was felt that the condition of Boston was largely due to un- lawful acts which she ought to have prevented. Men elsewhere, as was natural, preferred to consider their
1 The fact that Philadelphia was the first city on the continent which adopted measures to prevent the landing of the tea is not so well known. On the i8th of October, 1773, a meeting of the citizens was held in the State- House yard (Dr. Thomas Cadwalader presiding), when resolutions were adopted announcing the determi- nation of the citizens that the tea which had been sent to this port should not be landed. The meeting in Boston for the same purpose was held on November 5, 1773, when the resolutions adopted by the Philadelphia meeting were approved almost in the same words, the chairman of the Boston meeting, John Hancock, saying that they fully expressed the opinion prevailing there. (See Pennsylvania Mercury of October i, 1791, and Frothingham's "Rise of the Republic.")
98 DICKINSON AGAIN IN THE ASSEMBLY.
own position in the quarrel, to point to their own ex- ample, and to decide for themselves what should be their attitude in those evil days which all felt were fast coming on them.
There was a sincere and deep-felt sympathy here with the people of Boston in the sufferings which they were called upon to endure in consequence of the destruction of the tea, an act which, strange to say, was regarded in Massachusetts as almost heroic, while the people here not merely condemned it as unlawful, to speak mildly, but insisted that compensation should be made to the East India Company for its loss.
Mr. Dickinson became again a member of the As- sembly in 1 77 1, and on the 5th of March of that year he drafted, at the request of the Assembly, a Petition to the King, which was unanimously adopted. This petition complained that, while many of the acts re- cently passed for the sole purpose of raising a revenue had been repealed, the duties on tea were still retained, adding, " we have reason to fear, forming a precedent for repeating such taxation hereafter." The petition, which is in the tone of the most loyal devotion to the Crown, asks that the people of Pennsylvania may be restored to the condition they were in before 1 763.
Mr. Dickinson may have suffered from the unpopu- larity which clung to him in consequence of his support of the Proprietary charter in 1764. But he was not lost sight of in time of need. It is very clear from the result that these years were given by him to a continued study of the relations of the Colonies with the metropo- lis. The first fruit of these studies was, as we have seen, the " Farmer's Letters," the most accurate and
BECOMES UNPOPULAR IN NEW ENGLAND. 99
satisfactory statement of those relations which had been made public. These letters brought him at once into the foremost rank of controversialists, and soon forced his recognition on all sides throughout the continent as the leader in the coming struggle. It is true that no change of circumstances could induce him to modify the great principles which he had held in the quarrel as he had stated them in the " Farmer's Letters." Hence his influence with certain advanced patriots in New England became impaired. Those who had been loudest in his praises in that part of the country, and who had fol- lowed his teaching when they called him the " illustrious farmer," not only forsook him as time went on and they found that he did not approve of their course, but denounced him because he would not plunge into revolutionary current with them. They did not con- sider that the change was with them and not with 'him. The truth is, the people of Massachusetts, and espe- cially of Boston, were so indignant and so excited by the scenes of wretchedness and ruin daily before their eyes that they lost all control of themselves, and spoke with contempt of any sympathy expressed for them which did not promise material aid for their support. Mr. Dickinson, in a private letter to one of his former admirers in Boston just after the destruction of the tea, had ventured to doubt whether that act was a wise one. Whereupon Mr. Quincy (for it was he who was Dick- inson's correspondent) replied (August 20, 1774), "I say, if a Colony thus insulted, galled from without and vexed within, should seem to advance and break the line of opposition, ought it to incur the heavy censure of betraying the common cause ?" Dickinson replies not
ioo HIS ADVICE NO LONGER FOLLOWED.
merely with courtesy, but in the kindest possible spirit : " I trembled lest something might have happened which / could not only forgive but applaud, but which might have been eagerly and basely seized upon by others as a pretence for deserting them. This was the sense of men in Philadelphia the most devoted to the people of Boston, and under this apprehension we agreed to make use of the strongest expressions. I wrote in agonies of mind for my brethren in Boston." So much for Quincy. Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Gerry expressed similar opinions at this crisis. They had been unwilling, or perhaps unable, to take the advice or follow the example of Dickinson. When trouble came upon them in consequence, they appealed to him again for counsel, but found him unwilling to change the well-settled opinions of his life and to advise the people of Pennsylvania to aid those who were en- gaged in violent resistance to the execution of acts of Parliament. The truth is, the people of Boston were fast drifting into a revolution. If they were not con- scious of it, the vast majority of the people of the other Colonies saw it plainly, and, as they were then united for a redress of grievances, they could not seek that redress by force until the usual orderly and peaceful means of obtaining it, by a common effort, had utterly failed. Such, at least, was John Dickinson's doctrine, and he was never forgiven by the New England zealots because he refused to follow them in their blind fury. From that day he was no longer to them the "illustrious farmer," but u timid," " apathetic," " deficient in energy," etc. He became the point of attack of these men during the Revolution, and he has become to the New
SAMUEL ADAMS AND DICKINSON.
England historians ever since the type of a weak, doubting, and undecided trimmer. The following ex- tracts from Mr. Wells's " Life of Samuel Adams" will explain how such opinions came to be held :
"From the time that the celebrated John Dickinson commenced writing his 'Farmer's Letters/ in the fall of 1767, Mr. Adams had felt his heart warm towards him with the sympathy of one great mind appreciating another through his works, without a personal acquaintance. He was so pleased with the purity of style and devoted patriotism of those writings that he repeatedly quoted them in his own essays, as if anxious that the New England people should not miss their benign influence, and he often held them up to his fel- low-citizens as worthy of their frequent consideration. No man south of Massachusetts had done so much in the press as Dickinson to support the popular cause. Latterly, however, his writings had grown less frequent, and Adams, solicitous that the subject of Parlia- mentary supremacy which had been raised in Massachusetts should also be discussed in the other Provinces, now wrote to Dickinson for the double purpose of engaging his powerful pen on that point, and to establish a somewhat more familiar relationship between them than that of merely hearing each other mentioned by mutual friends. There was a wide difference between the two men: both were ardently devoted to American liberty; each was recognized as the ablest writer in his section of the continent, and each commanded public respect by his unaffected piety and love of justice. But while the most cherished wish of Adams was the total independence of his country, Dickinson, who for some time influenced Pennsylvania through the general admiration of his character, shrunk from such a thought, and longed for nothing more than conciliation. Adams was acquainted with poverty and the humble in life, and had reached eminence among his townsmen by mingling with public affairs and personally leading in political measures. Dickinson, surrounded by wealth, and enjoying leisure to cultivate his scholarly tastes, was without physical vigor, loved repose and retirement, and was fearful of precipitancy in the measures of the New Englanders.
"The one, with his inflexible will and ceaseless energy, never lost sight of his purpose, and yet constantly tempered his zeal with a
102 THEIR CORRESPONDENCE.
sagacious appreciation of the character of the people and the cir- cumstances of the time; the other, with an organization not more sensitive than that of Adams, had nothing decisive in his composi- tion, and lacked the power which constitutes a leader. Yet the two men had, each in his own particular sphere, exceeded all others in creating public opinion. Adams saw that if he could induce Dick- inson to commence writing on the subject of the late controversy, the name of the author would command general attention, and Dick- inson would stand committed to the position taken by the Massachu- setts legislature, thus leading the way to the adoption of the same doctrine by the Pennsylvania Assembly. The correspondence, which has been preserved, is as follows :
"BOSTON, March 27, 1773.
" SIR, — I take the liberty of enclosing an oration delivered by Dr. Benjamin Church on the anniversary of the 5th of March, 1770, which I beg the favor of you to accept.
"The proceedings of our General Assembly at our last session you may perhaps have seen in the newspapers. Our governor in a man- ner forced the Assembly to express their sentiments of so delicate though important a subject as the supreme authority of the Par- liament of Great Britain over the Colonies. The silence of the other Assemblies, of late, upon any subject that concerns the joint interest of the Colonies, rendered it somewhat difficult to determine what to say with propriety. As the sense of the Colonies might possibly be drawn from what might be advanced by this Province, you will con- ceive that the Assembly would have chosen to be silent till the senti- ments of at least gentlemen of eminence out of this Province could be known ; at the same time that silence would have been construed as the acknowledgment of the governor's principles and a submission to the fatal effect of them. What will be the consequences of. this controversy time must determine. If the governor entered into it of his own notion, as I am apt to believe he did, he may not have the approbation of the ministry for counteracting what appears to me to have been for two years past their favorite design, to keep the Americans quiet and to lull them into security.
" Could your health or leisure admit of it, a publication of your sen- timents on this and other matters of the most interesting importance would be of substantial advantage to your country. Your candor
DIVERGENCE OF THEIR VIEWS.
will excuse the freedom I take in this repeated request ; an individual has some right, in behalf of the public, still to urge the assistance of those who have been heretofore themselves its ablest advocates.
" I shall take it a favor if you will present the other enclosed oration to Mr. Reed, whom I once had the pleasure of conversing with in this place, and to whom I would have written by this unexpected opportunity, but am prevented by the hurry of the bearer.
"I am, sir, with sincere regard, your most humble servant,
" SAMUEL ADAMS.
" JOHN DICKINSON, ESQ., Philadelphia.
" Upon what other occasion they had corresponded is not known, unless he refers by this ' repeated request' to the vote of thanks which Boston, in April, 1 768, had sent to the author of the ' Farmer's Letters' by the hand of Samuel Adams. " Dickinson immediately replied :
" FAIRHILL, NEAR PHILADELPHIA, April 10, 1773.
" DEAR SIR, — I return you my hearty thanks for your favor of the 27th of March, which has just come to my hands, and for the enclosed oration.
" I have seen with the sincerest pleasure the proceedings you men- tion. They are greatly approved, even by those who, by a strange combination of events, are affected with a political lethargy. The firmness, temper, and wisdom of your Assembly are acknowledged to do them honor. May the same zeal, united with the same knowl- edge, still govern the conduct of your truly respectable Province, till time shall ripen the period for asserting more successfully the liberties of these Colonies, that thereby they may be kept on the watch to seize the happy opportunity when it offers.
" My heart is devoted with the most ardent affection to the interests of my countrymen. I join in their opposition to the encroachments of Great Britain from two motives, — a love of liberty and a love of peace, — for I am convinced in my own mind that no solid, per- manent tranquillity will be established in America until they attain 1 pladdam stib libertate quiet em. *
"But, sir, though these are my sentiments, I must beg you will please to excuse me from enlarging on them in any publication.
"I never had that idea of my abilities or learning to suppose that
104 MR. ADAMS AND THE QUAKERS.
anything that I could offer to my countrymen could merit their atten- tion after the same subject had been discussed by another person. I never took up my pen as a volunteer, but always as a man pressed into the service of my country by a sense of my duty to her ; and though for a little while I may have endeavored to maintain a post, yet it has only been till a better soldier could come more completely armed to defend it.
"The cause is in excellent hands. May Heaven prosper their worthy efforts. . . .
"I am, sir, with the strictest esteem,
" Your very humble servant,
" JOHN DICKINSON. " SAMUEL ADAMS, ESQ."
Whatever may have been the services of Mr. Samuel Adams as a revolutionary leader, it is very clear that he lacked one quality which is usually reckoned essen- tial in a person claiming such a position, — a spirit of moderation and conciliation. Not understanding Mr. Dickinson's temperament, he assumed to dictate to him the course he should pursue. When we consider their relative positions at the time, such an attempt appears presumptuous enough. With what calm and perfect dignity Dickinson rebuked this pretension is very ob- servable in this letter. The truth is, no one out of New England could submit to the arrogance of a man who, at a time when it was necessary to conciliate all parties so that independence might be achieved, did not hes- itate to call the Quakers of Pennsylvania, who bore their burdens without appealing to any one for aid, in a pamphlet addressed to them, "pigeon-hearted wretches'' and "puling pusillanimous cowards."
Under these circumstances an appeal was made by Boston, not for sympathy only, but for material aid and
BOSTON'S MESSAGE TO PHILADELPHIA. 105
co-operation, in measures which would involve the good people of Pennsylvania in what they were old-fashioned enough to think the guilt of rebellion. On the iQth of May, 1774, Mr. Paul Revere arrived in Philadelphia as a messenger from Boston, the bearer of letters from Messrs. Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Thomas Gushing to Messrs. Reed and Miffliri, in which the sympathy and co-operation of this city and Province were invoked to protect them against the effect of ministerial vengeance. The private letters which he brought were even more emphatic and alarming in their tone. The writers assured their correspondents in Philadelphia that, unless that city joined them in their action, Boston was in no condition to make any oppo- sition, and declared that their conduct in this crisis depended upon that of Philadelphia.1 These corre- spondents, feeling that the opinion and counsel of Mr. Dickinson in this exigency would be most valuable, and that his presence at the public meeting which it was proposed to hold was essential if any active proceed- ings against the ministerial tyranny were to be adopted, determined to visit him at his country residence, Fair- hill. These gentlemen were all intimate personal friends of Dickinson, and no greater proof could be given of the extraordinary power which he then wielded than that they should all have instinctively turned to him to solve the question of the fate of a continent.
On their arrival at Fairhill they tried hard to induce him to be present at the meeting which had been con- vened to consider the Boston message, and to say a few words in order to encourage the people there to 1 See the statement of Charles Thomson, Appendix II.
106 DICKINSON OPPOSES VIOLENCE.
persevere in the course they had seen fit to adopt. Dickinson was evidently fully conscious of the re- sponsibility of the position which he occupied, but de- clined, as he had done before, to say anything which might seem like approval of their violent measures, although he expressed deep sympathy with them in the trouble in which they had become involved. Nothing could induce him to go further, — not even " the gener- ous circulation of the convivial glass/' which Mr. Reed tells us was tried, as a " conversational aperient/' The wine failing to make him more " animated, communica- tive, and adventurous," flattery was next tried, and he was told that it was owing to the " Farmer's Letters" and his example that there was a present disposition to oppose the tyranny of Parliament. Dickinson re- mained immovable. He could not be brought to ap- prove the Boston measures, because their violence had destroyed all hopes of the success of his favorite policy of conciliation. He was equally opposed to submission and to resistance by force, at least for the present. He preferred to wait until the people should show that they had well weighed the consequences of resistance and were in some measure prepared (which so far they had not shown) to abide by them. With these views he at last consented to attend the meeting at the City Tavern on the 2Oth of May. He made a short speech, in which he confined himself to expressions of sympathy for the people of Boston, and to advising a request to the governor to convene the Assembly of the Province to take into consideration the grave condition of public affairs.
An answer of a friendly kind was at once drawn up
EDWARD TILGHMAN'S ACCOUNT. ™7
by Dr. Smith (the Provost of the college) to the Boston letter, Mr. Dickinson not being present. The people there were told that while it was felt that Boston was suffering in the common cause, yet it was the opinion of the Philadelphia meeting that if this unhappy con- troversy could be ended by paying the East India Company compensation for the tea which had been destroyed, it would be advisable to take that course.
As this meeting had important consequences, it may be well to give an account of it sent by an eye-witness — Edward Tilghman — to his father in Maryland, in a letter dated May 26, 1774. Mr. Tilghman was the son of the Hon. Edward Tilghman, of Wye, in Maryland ; the nephew of Matthew Tilghman, who was the presi- dent of the Maryland Convention, and of James Tilgh- man, the secretary of the Province and councillor ; the cousin of Colonel Tench Tilghman, the favorite aide-de- camp of Washington, and of Judge William Tilghman, for many years Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. He himself was in .1776 a private sol- dier in one of the regiments of the Philadelphia Asso- ciators, and afterwards brigade-major to Lord Stirling at the battle of Long Island. He became in after-life the most distinguished lawyer of his day, in the opinion of the late Horace Binney.
" In regard to the meeting at the City Tavern, Mr. Reed, a rising lawyer who came among us from New Jersey, made a motion to address the governor to call the Assembly, that we might show our inclination to take every legal step in order to obtain redress of our grievances. He was seconded by Mr. Dickinson. It is agreed on all hands that he spoke with great cool-
DR. SMITH'S LETTER.
ness, calmness, moderation, and good sense. Charles Thomson, as well as Reed, was more violent. He spoke till he fainted, and then went at it again. They were opposed by Alexander Wilcocks and by Dr. Smith, but upon a division the motion was carried by a vast majority. The sense of the people is evidently in favor of the measure. The governor was quiet in the tea affair. He did not attempt a landing of the tea, or give the ministry any intelligence in the matter. For this he has received an exceedingly severe letter from Lord Dartmouth, a letter, I am informed, pressing him so closely that it was very difficult to answer. Govern- ment is watching every opportunity of taking away our charters. Those with whom I have talked are for pay- ing for the tea, protesting that they do it because they cannot help it, and for entering into the most firm and decent association against consuming articles that have paid the duty."
The letter of Dr. Smith's on behalf of the Philadel- phia meeting, showing so little of the kind of sympathy which had been expected in Boston, is said by John Adams to have been " coldly received" there. One im- mediate consequence was apparent. John Dickinson, who had not been consulted about the letter, but whose sentiments it certainly did express, had long been al- most as much of a popular idol in Boston as he was in Philadelphia, but he soon ceased to have any wor- shippers. Samuel Adams alone pleaded the cause of his old friend. With a manliness which did not always characterize him, he insisted, "After all, the Farmer is right : at the present crisis submission or resist- ance would prove equally ruinous to the cause." But
BOSTON OPINION AND DICKINSON. i°9
apparently he stood alone. Dickinson was dethroned from the conspicuous shrine he had occupied in the temple of the Sons of Liberty, and his name has been rescued from forgetfulness in that part of the country only by the bitter taunts which the recollection of his counsel to "pay for the tea" has forced the New England writers to cast upon his memory.1
The Philadelphia committee, whose letter had fallen so far below the expectation of the people of Boston, were not inactive in taking such measures as they thought the condition of the country required. During the summer of 1774 the population of the city, with John Dickinson at their head, were engaged in organizing resistance, should such resistance become necessary.
x The different course pursued in Philadelphia and in Boston on the arrival of the tea-ships furnishes a strong illustration of the dif- ference in the two communities. The agents of the East India Com- pany and consignees of the tea in Philadelphia were Messrs. Thomas and Isaac Wharton, Quakers, be it remembered, but good patriots in their opposition to the Tea Act. This is the account they give to their correspondents concerning the attempt to land the tea here, under the date of December 27, 1773: "At ten o'clock on the morning of the 27th, a very numerous meeting of the inhabitants determined that the tea should not be landed, and allowed Captain Ayres till next day to furnish himself with provisions, etc., on condi- tion that his ship should depart from her then situation and proceed down the river, some of the committee going down to the ship with Captain Ayres, in order to see the first step performed, which being effected, he returned to the city. T. and I. W. with I. B. offered to advance Captain Ayres such a sum of money as he should need. . . . Thou wilt observe that as the ship was not entered in our port, no part of the cargo was unloaded, either the property of the Honorable East India Company or that of any private person, and, as I find that my brother Samuel (in London) had caused a chariot to be shipped on board, it naturally returns with the other goods," etc.
no PENNSYLVANIAN FORM OF RESISTANCE.
News having arrived in the beginning of June of the passage of two additional acts of Parliament intended still further to harass the people of Boston, a public meeting was held in the State-House yard (eight thousand persons are said to have been present) on the 2Oth of that month, presided over by Thomas Wil- ling and John Dickinson. The meeting took some bold steps, which became very important in the progress of the controversy. It not only declared the Boston Port Bill unconstitutional (that is, in excess of the ordinary legislative power of Parliament), but created a Committee of Correspondence with practical functions of great importance. This committee was to corre- spond and consult not merely with like committees in the other Colonies, but also with similar committees to be appointed in each county of this Province. These committees were to send delegates (conferees, as they were called) to a meeting to be held in Philadelphia on the 1 5th of July. These conferees met on the day ap- pointed, and, considering themselves as the true repre- sentatives of the people of Pennsylvania, although very irregularly chosen and without the shadow of any legal authority, undertook not merely to instruct the legal Assembly, which was to meet in August, that they should choose delegates to the Continental Congress, but also to express what they supposed to be the opin- ion of the people of Pennsylvania, in the shape of in- structions to these delegates on the momentous ques- tions of the hour. In short, we must consider this Conference simply as a revolutionary body forced by an overruling necessity in the opinion of its members, who were among the most conspicuous and patriotic
INSTRUCTIONS TO THE ASSEMBLY. i"
men of the time in the Province, to adopt an extra- legal course. The chairman of this Committee of Cor- respondence in Philadelphia was John Dickinson ; and when the Conference met, he, on behalf of that commit- tee, presented three papers indicating the course which should be pursued at the crisis. These were unani- mously adopted by the Conference, and they are spoken of by Ramsay, the historian, as the most " clear, pre- cise, and determinate of any which had been presented during the controversy." The first was a series of resolutions embodying the principles upon which we rested our claims for redress ; the second was a code of instructions * to the delegates who were to be chosen by the Assembly to represent the Province in the Con- tinental Congress; and the third was an exhaustive treatise or essay upon the constitutional power of Great Britain to tax the Colonies, illustrating and enforcing
1 In regard to the instructions given by the Assembly to the delegates to the Congress there has been some confusion. Mr. Gal- loway, in his examination before the House of Commons, told the committee that he drew up his own instructions. It is true that as Speaker of the Assembly he sent to each of the delegates a notice of his election, but he told them also that such would be the diversity of subjects in Congress that no specific instructions could be given, except that the union of the Crown and the Colonies was to be maintained. The real and binding instructions (so far as any instruc- tions could be binding) had been prepared by Mr. Dickinson at the request of the Conference of July 15. They were very elaborate, both as to the election of the delegates and as to their duties, and they were adopted by this extra-legal body because it was felt that an As- sembly so completely under the control of a man of the well-known royalist sentiments of Mr. Galloway could not be trusted either to elect such delegates to the Continental Congress or to give them instructions such as the public sentiment of the time demanded.
H2 CHARACTERISTICS OF THESE PAPERS.
the doctrine of the resolutions and the instructions to the delegates.
There is not a word in these three masterly state papers justifying our resistance on any other ground than that the conduct of the ministry was a gross viola- tion of English law and of our charters. The truth is, they were simply the embodiment of the views which Dickinson, with the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Colonies, had held from the beginning. His course was in strict accordance with the precedents of English history. He looked to the past for his justi- fication ; the statesmen of New England trusted to the future more than he did, and their actions were guided rather by faith than by experience. In other words, Dickinson's method of conducting a revolution in these Colonies was formed, as were most of his political ideas, from English example and tradition, — from move- ments such as those embodied in the Petition of Right of 1628, in the Declaration and the Act of Settlement of 1688, and in the revolt of the Netherlands against the illegal acts of the King of Spain. In New England, and in Massachusetts particularly, the leaders antici- pated in a certain degree the course of events in the early history of the French Revolution. Their object seems to have been to reduce certain abstract princi- ples of right and justice to the government of man in civil society, without regard to those historical tradi- tions which are the real basis of what is permanent and valuable in any system. John Adams, in a letter which he wrote to Governor McKean, July 6, 1815, just before the final downfall of Napoleon, expresses the views which he then entertained on this subject, and
JOHN ADAMS AND POPULAR GOVERNMENT. i*3
there is reason to believe that they are practically the same as those which he and his partisans held when the first Continental Congress met, in 1774. "The present question," he says, " before the human race, that great democratical tribunal, is whether the jus divinum is in men, or in magistrates ; in human nature, or in in- stituted offices ; in human understanding, or in holy oil; in good sense and sound morality, or in crowns, sceptres, crosses, and Episcopal and Presbyterian ordi- nation." Unfortunately, these are questions not to be settled by any debating society, large or small, by what- ever name it may be called. It happened, strangely enough, that they had been settled in Europe for long years by the only method which history recognizes as capable in the last resort of controlling man's action, and that is force. The battle of Waterloo, which oc- curred three weeks before this letter was written, but the news of which had not reached the venerable sage who wrote it, and which decided the fate of Europe for generations, was the answer given to a faith which maintained that human governments are the outgrowth of man's choice, rather than of his history, over which he has no control.
The resolutions adopted by this Conference, the in- structions of the delegates to the Congress who were to be chosen by the Assembly, and the essay upon the power of taxation, form parts of a general political sys- tem first formulated by John Dickinson, and adhered to by him and his followers of the historical school up to the time of the Declaration of Independence. They present in the clearest manner an outline of the case of the Colonies in accordance with the theories of that
8
"4 DICKINSON AND THE HISTORICAL SCHOOL.
school, as they no doubt embodied the nearly unani- mous opinion of the country outside of New England on this subject. The theory of government on which they were based was deliberately and finally rejected when the Declaration of Independence was adopted. How it happened that such a theory became wholly discredited in the course of events is a subject of in- quiry full of historical interest, and one which well deserves the careful scrutiny of those who would trace the progress of the American Revolution.
CHAPTER V.
THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.
THE summer of 1774 seems to have been an era in government-making. It is curious to observe how this tendency appears in the correspondence of prominent men of the time which has not been printed. It seems that the scheme which was first proposed by Dickinson to his fellow-members of the Provincial Committee of Correspondence was vigorously debated in the private meetings of the committee, at which, in order to ob- tain an expression of opinion which could be depended upon, the representatives of six of the religious denom- inations of the city were invited to be present. The original draft was doubtless much modified to meet the views of these persons, but exactly in what re- spect it is not easy to say. We find in the letter- book of Thomas Wharton, a prominent Quaker, one of the principal merchants of the city, and agent here, as has been said, for the East India Company, a letter dated July 5, 1774, written by him to Thomas Walpole, in which he says, " Hence thou seest the probability of an American Union taking place ; and I dare say thou wilt join with me in believing that it would be happy could our parent State assist us in thus estab- lishing a constitutional union between her and us ; she to appoint a supreme magistrate to reside on the continent, who, with a fixed number taken from each
I T
n6 VIEWS OF THE QUAKERS AT THIS TIME.
House of Assembly, should form an upper legislature to control the general affairs of the continent. The intention of this Congress is to endeavor to form a constitutional plan for the government of America, dutifully to petition and remonstrate, and, if possible, to point out such heads that we may unite with the mother-country upon a constitutional union."
These were the views of a man who was an ultra- conservative of the time, and substantially they are the same as those embodied in the scheme afterwards proposed by Galloway. Wharton was one of the Quakers who some years later were exiled to Vir- ginia because their presence at their homes was con- sidered dangerous to the patriot cause on the near approach of the British army to the city after the battle of Brandywine ; and yet we find him not only advocating a certain form of union between the Col- onies and Great Britain which would establish a very different relation from any that had previously existed between them, but actually supposing that the English government could be induced to approve of such a scheme. The feeling then was that a closer and not a looser union was the true remedy for the evils from which we suffered.
At last the Conference adopted the papers as we now find them in print. They were transmitted to the As- sembly of the Province of Pennsylvania, which met on the 22d of August, and there was evidently some appre- hension as to the course which would be pursued by that body in regard to them. These fears, however, proved unfounded : the resolutions and instructions were unanimously approved by the Assembly, and on
THE PENNSYLVANIA ASSEMBLY MEETS. Ir7
the same day the following members were elected to represent Pennsylvania in the Continental Congress, — viz., Messrs. Galloway, the Speaker, Rhoads, Mifflin, Humphreys, Morton, George Ross, and Edward Biddle. These men were all well known in the Province, and had served it faithfully for many years.
Mr. Galloway, the Speaker of the House and the head of the delegation, was looked upon at that time as the great champion of popular rights. He had acquired this reputation from the active part he had taken in 1764 in the controversy with the Proprieta- ries, having drawn up the twenty-six resolutions in which the Assembly asserted that the Proprietary gov- ernment had outlived its usefulness and prayed the king to resume his direct government over the Prov- ince. His activity at that time had endeared him to the country members, most of whom were under his control. The speech which he claimed to have deliv- ered in the Assembly in support of this petition was said by Mr. Dickinson not to have been the one really made by him, and thus a quarrel was excited between him and Galloway which produced a permanent es- trangement at a time when their co-operation would have been of great importance to the public service. Galloway is said to have been ambitious of repre- senting the Assembly in the House of Commons, or in the Grand Council for which he had schemed, and to have forsaken the American cause when he found how vain were his hopes. He was a most brilliant lawyer, — at the head of the bar, indeed, — and few of the loyalists lost more than he did by taking the royal side ; he himself estimated his losses at forty thousand
n8 ELECTS DELEGATES TO THE CONGRESS.
pounds. During the first session of the Continental Congress, however, few men went further than he in supporting the American claims, and in the absence of Dickinson (who had not been chosen a delegate because he was not a member of the Assembly) he wielded a great influence over the Pennsylvania deputation.
Mr. Samuel Rhoads was also a Quaker, known for his wealth and his public spirit. He had been in public life since 1741 as a member of the City Councils and of the Assembly, and as one of the negotiators of the famous treaty with the Indians at Lancaster. He was chosen mayor of the city while he was a member of the Continental Congress, and thereupon resigned his seat. He had been active in advocating the popular cause, so far as a Quaker could then go towards that end, but became a little timid as he considered some of the proceedings of Congress. He was a warm friend of Franklin, and was associated with him in the management of the Hospital, the Philosophical Society, and the Library.
Thomas Mifflin seems to have been the only one of the delegates who occupied from the beginning the place familiar to us in the history of all revolutions, — that of the " volunteer for the war." He was compara- tively a young man at this time, but he had been long a member of the Assembly, and had been one of the most active of the opponents of the Proprietaries in 1764. He had the advantages of birth, wealthy connections, and education, and when the war broke out he was one of the first to offer his services. He was a major of one of the regiments at the siege of Boston, and showed such capacity in bringing his men into a state of disci-
SKETCH OF THE DELEGATES. "9
pline and efficiency that he attracted the attention of General Washington. He was shortly afterwards made brigadier-general, and subsequently quartermaster-gen- eral. He was a man of the most determined and demonstrative patriotism, and when the recruiting fell off in Pennsylvania he made excursions through the State, making speeches in the principal towns, and suc- ceeded by his appeals to the patriotism of the people in increasing considerably the numbers of the army at important crises. He was, unfortunately, associ- ated with Generals Gates and Conway in the famous Conway Cabal, and his reputation has suffered in his- tory from his efforts to supersede Washington. But his energy and ability during the war seem to have condoned his errors in the eyes of his contemporaries. He was elected a delegate to Congress in 1783, and was president of that body when General Washington surrendered his commission at Annapolis ; he was also a delegate to the convention which framed the Consti- tution of the United States, President of Pennsylvania, and Governor under the Constitution of 1 790. Appar- ently he took little part in the debates of the first Con- gress, but, when he did speak, he was always in favor of the most energetic measures. He was the first of the " new men" in Pennsylvania who occupied a con- spicuous position.
Messrs. Biddle and Ross were lawyers of high repu- tation in the interior of the State, the first residing at Reading and the other at Lancaster. They were both men at this time of conservative views, and they had great influence with their country constituencies, each having been conspicuous for his opposition to the minis-
120 THE SAME CONTINUED.
try. Mr. Biddle is spoken of by a contemporary as a man of " ready elocution, sound principles, and correct judgment," and Mr. Ross became a judge, with a high reputation for learning and integrity, in 1779.
Messrs. Humphreys and Morton were country gen- tlemen, or rather of the better class of farmers, living in the neighborhood of the city. They had both long been members of the Assembly, were familiar with the political questions of the time, and, although they took opposite sides in the quarrel, were recognized by all as sincere patriots.
It may be well to say here that the Pennsylvania deputation to the Congress was a good deal changed by the time the Declaration of Independence was adopted, and these changes serve as indications of the change of party feeling during the interval. Galloway was the first to retire, he, in January, 1775, making the state of his health an excuse for declining a service which to him appeared every day more hazardous. Rhoads found it convenient, as has been said, to give up Con- gressional honors when he was elected mayor of the city. Dr. Franklin was chosen at once as a delegate upon his return from Europe, in May, 1775. Mifflin's services were required in the camp before Boston. George Ross resigned his seat. In November, 1775, the following additional delegates were elected to fill these vacancies : Robert Morris, Thomas Willing, An- drew Allen, and James Wilson.
In looking over these names, those who are familiar with the history of Pennsylvania need not be told that the delegates elected in 1775 represented a much more conservative side of the question at issue than those
DICKINSON ONE OF THE DELEGATES. I2*
chosen in 1774. As the time drew nigh when indepen- dence became probable, two of these delegates, not thinking the time ripe for such an event, hesitated to take the irrevocable step of declaring independence, simply because it did not seem opportune in their opinion. In consequence, Messrs. Biddle and Andrew Allen retired from Congress in the spring of 1776. Mr. Dickinson, it should be said, was elected a member of the As- sembly early in October to fill a vacancy, and on the 1 7th of that month was chosen by that body as an additional delegate to the Congress of 1774. The rest constituted the very flower of the moneyed and intellec- tual aristocracy of the Province, and upon them rested the responsibility of giving or withholding their assent to that document which may be said in a very important sense to have created a new world, — the Declaration of Independence.
Before considering the work of the Continental Con- gress which brought us safely through the Revolutionary war, and especially the policy which led to the early adoption of the Declaration of Independence, we must look at some of the formidable obstacles which stood in the way of success. It is perhaps not too much to say that when resistance was first spoken of, up to at least the outbreak of the war, no sentiment could have been more abhorrent to the mass of the people than that which the Declaration afterwards embodied. Even a suggestion that the dissolution of our connec- tion with the British Empire would in any event be desirable would have been looked upon as monstrous. Outside all mere political considerations there were feelings, the force of which we can now understand
122 OBSTACLES TO ARMED RESISTANCE.
but little, which were then universal and all-powerful. There was the sentiment of loyalty, for instance, to the king and the constitution, a sentiment which, notwith- standing the shocks it had received in this country, was an ever-active principle, and had grown stronger and stronger every year in the inherited traits of the Eng- lish character ; there was, besides, that passionate love of country, inflamed just then by pride at the recent conquests of England on both continents ; there was, in addition to all, that indefinable but strong feeling of race which gloried in belonging to the foremost nation of modern times. All these things may seem insignifi- cant as moulding the opinions of men, yet they have been among the most potent agencies as stimulants to heroic action in all ages, and with people of English blood especially. In difficult times Englishmen have never forgotten the days of their proud history, and they were not likely to do so in the days of Clive, of Wolfe, and of the elder Pitt. It cannot be doubted that sentiments the outgrowth of conditions such as these were far more deep-seated among the Colonists pre- vious to the outbreak of the war than the spirit of rebellion. The Colonies, besides, had then none of those intimate relations with one another which now, quite as much as the law itself, give us union and force in what we undertake. The mass of the population was, of course, British by birth or descent, but it was, in some of the Colonies at least, as in Pennsylvania, composed of different races, holding very different opinions in religion and government. Thus, in this Province, induced by the mildness of Penn's govern- ment, all nations had given one another rendezvous.
WANT OF UNION. 123
We had here English mixed up with Irish and Ger- mans, Quakers with Presbyterians, and members of the various pietistic German sects of the seventeenth century, all enjoying what was promised them in Massa- chusetts,— sub libertate quietem. So in New York the antagonism between the mass of the population and the great landholders, between the Dutch and Scotch Presbyterians and the Church people, was felt more or less during the whole war, as it had been throughout the history of the Colony. In Virginia the Dissenters, as they were called, were ardent supporters of a revo- lution one of the results of which would be the sup- pression of their greatest practical grievance, the estab- lished Church of the Colony. In short, look where we will throughout the Colonies before the commence- ment of hostilities, we find discontent arising from a variety of causes, but no common ground of resistance. Indeed, this want of union in political and religious ideas had always been a characteristic feature of the history of the Colonies, and had made it very difficult to enforce any common policy.
The Colonies were also separated by differing habits, customs, tastes, and opinions, and all sorts of petty jealousies of one another and of the Crown. Many of these obstacles seemed insuperable, and it is well known that the British government was perfectly con- vinced that the Colonies would be helpless owing to these differences. These obstacles, as we have already hinted, seemed to all at that time to have their origin in differences which were fundamental and inalterable in the condition and the characteristics of the people inhabit- ing different sections of the country. The Puritan and
'24 PURITANS AND QUAKERS.
the Quaker, for instance, were not only persons of dif- ferent temper, and of totally opposite views concerning the lawfulness of war, but they had radically different ideas as to the nature of government and the character and extent of the obligation which was imposed upon them by their allegiance to the Crown. The Puritan, although he was nominally the subject of a monarchy, had been in point of fact, certainly ever since he had come to New England, and probably long before, es- sentially a republican, always holding fast, in spite of kings and charters and mandamuses, to the funda- mental principle of republicanism, that of self-govern- ment. He was an Independent in religion, which implies that he insisted upon a system of self-govern- ment in his ecclesiastical as well as in his civil relations. Moreover, he felt in its acutest form that jealousy of power which has always been characteristic of the Englishman in history when any attempt from any quarter has been made to assert arbitrary principles of government. He was not disposed to wait and see whether any overt acts would follow the avowal of such principles, and especially he did not stop to consider whether he himself was likely to suffer from such acts or the principles upon which they were based. Obsla principiis was his motto.
The Quakers, on the contrary, were essentially a law- abiding people, patient and long-suffering, and not prone to anticipate evil. None had suffered more than they in history from the abuse of power, but their religion and their experience alike taught them that passive resistance to wrong, as they manifested it, was alike their duty and their best policy. They believed
PECULIAR POSITION OF THE QUAKERS. 125
literally that all things come to those who wait. They were, therefore, not restless nor noisy nor quarrelsome, and believed fully that the force of time and the influ- ence of reason would bring about a redress of the grievances from which they had suffered. They had maintained their existence and their peculiar doctrines under all forms of tyranny and without relying upon the arm of flesh for support. The very first principle of the Quakers, indeed, was a loyal submission to the government under which they lived, so long as it did not openly infringe their civil and ecclesiastical rights. With this sentiment was joined another equally strong and powerful as a guide to their conduct, and that was a profound conviction of the value of liberty of con- science, for the security of which they had contended in their own way from the beginning. To maintain this freedom of conscience they were ready to make any sacrifice, and hitherto these sacrifices had produced abundant fruit. Still, with this love of liberty, civil and religious, fully as strong /-as that of the Puritan, the Quaker was never clamorous in asserting his rights. He was long-suffering, and persistent in his opinions, but kept his temper even when he was threatened with immediate and irreparable injury. There was, indeed, a point (as shown in the history of the Province) when he could resist. When he found, for instance, that the Proprietaries in Pennsylvania were unwilling that their lands should be taxed in the same manner as those of other people, he persisted for years, and as long as there was any hope of accomplishing his object, in a constitutional opposition to such a pretension ; and finally he did not hesitate, as a last remedy against this
126 HOW FAR OPPOSED TO WAR.
flagrant injustice, to petition the king to revoke that charter which had been granted to William Penn and which had hitherto been priceless to him as a testimony of the king's government to the confidence felt in the Quakers, and under which the Province had enjoyed such wonderful prosperity. So when the governors under the Proprietaries insisted that the Quakers should render compulsory military service, they could never be induced to violate their principles by serving as soldiers, but they never hesitated, justifying themselves by some strange casuistry, to vote money to provide for the defence of the Province. They would not declare war against the Delawares and Shawanees, feeling that these Indians had been goaded on to the outrages they com- mitted on the frontiers by the injustice and rapacity of the agents of the Proprietary government, but they did not hesitate to defend with arms in their hands the Moravian Indian converts who had taken refuge in Philadelphia from the fury of the Paxton Boys.1 In short, Pennsylvania for the practical purposes of gov- ernment— that is, for the protection of all its subjects — was in a very disturbed condition from the beginning of the French War, in 1/55, to the end of Ponttac's War, in 1766. The discussions about the revocation of the charter, the constant complaints that the representation in the Assembly was unequal, and the cruel sufferings which had been undergone by the settlers on the lands west of the Susquehanna at the hands of the Indians, — all these evils, which were charged upon the party that was dominant when the Revolution began, seemed
1 See Appendix III.
UNION IN NEW ENGLAND.
to render any united action among the people, for any purpose, wholly impracticable.
In New England no such dissensions existed. The force of the people there was immeasurably increased by the common recognition of the traditions of Eng- lish liberty as a precious inheritance. With the blood of the Puritans they had preserved in full activity those political ideas which had led their forefathers to withstand so manfully the tyranny of Strafford and of Laud. It is a fact of immense importance, in estimating the force of the various Colonies in the war of independence, that in New England there was practically a unity of sentiment not only as to the nature of the grievances, but also as to the best method of redressing them. As for the Germans of Pennsyl- vania, living in the interior, engaged chiefly in farming, and kept by their ignorance of the language of the country from any very accurate knowledge of the alleged wrongs of which their fellow-subjects com- plained, or of the wisdom of the measures proposed to remedy them, their influence in the Province was not to be measured by their numbers. They suffered nothing from Stamp Acts or Smuggling Acts or Boston Port Bills, and they could not understand the earnestness with which the claim to impose taxation upon English- men was opposed, for in such matters they had neither knowledge nor experience. Their predominant feeling, if we are to regard the great patriarch of the Lutheran Church in this country, the Rev. Henry Muhlenberg, as their representative, was gratitude to the Quakers and their government, by which so many of the blessings of liberty and peace unknown in their Fatherland had
128 UNANIMITY IN PENNSYLVANIA.
been secured to them. Of course, such was their atti- tude only before the outbreak of hostilities ; for after the war broke out no portion of the population was more ready to defend its homes or took up arms more willingly in support of the American cause.
It would be, however, very unfair to judge of the character of the opposition in Pennsylvania to the ministerial tyranny from the cautious and conserva- tive attitude of the Quakers alone. Long before any one dreamed of war as the ultima ratio, all classes of people in every provincial party here, Quakers as well as Presbyterians, Germans, and Church-of-England people, had joined together in protesting against what all conceived to be acts of arbitrary power. The measures of opposition which they adopted at that critical time were similar to those agreed upon in the other Colonies. Thus, all classes in Pennsylvania, re- sistants and non-resistants alike, under the guidance of men who afterwards became conspicuous both as loyalists and as patriots, remonstrated with one accord against the Stamp Act and the Tea Act, the Boston Port Bill and the other measures intended to punish the town of Boston ; they all signed the non-importa- tion and non-exportation agreements ; they all peti- tioned the Crown that the right of self-government should be guaranteed ; they declared their determi- nation to maintain the fundamental rights of the Col- onists ; they warned the ministry that armed resistance would be made to further encroachments ; they did not hesitate to vote for raising men and money for the defence of the Province after the battle of Lexington ; and yet, with all this, they never ceased to hope that
GROUNDS OF THAT UNANIMITY. 129
some peaceful settlement of the dispute might be made and that no separation from the mother-country would take place. It is easy to say now that they were mis- taken in believing that England would at last consent to govern them as she had done previous to 1 763 ; but the man who maintained the opposite theory in 1776 would have argued against the force of every precedent in English history. At any rate, the course that was taken by the dominant party in Pennsylvania was not settled by the power of the non-resistant Quakers, and still less by the force of an irresistible popular clamor : it was deliberately taken under the guidance of thoroughly enlightened and patriotic men, whose studies and training had led them to discover in English history how and why their race had resisted oppression.
Nothing contributed more to produce confusion in the counsels of the leaders in the beginning of the Revolution than the different character and political training of the delegates from different sections of the country. It is, indeed, hard to conceive how the national cause could have been successfully promoted at all, when the men who were its champions were affected by so totally different an environment and had such opposite notions of the remedy. The line was drawn so distinctly between the parties that no compromise seemed possible, and the only question was which should have exclusive control of the destiny of the country. Strange to say, everything seemed to com- bine to keep apart those who professed to have the same object in view. Before the Massachusetts dele- gates to the Congress of 1774 reached Philadelphia,
9
130 CHARACTER OF THE DELEGATES.
it was the habit of those opposed to the popular cause, both here and in Boston, to speak of them as needy adventurers or lawyers seeking for notoriety, or as persons whose reputation and fortune had become compromised by attempts to defraud the customs' revenue. Whatever truth there may have been in these stories, they had, as we shall see, their effect so far as the influence of these gentlemen in Congress was concerned. But in Pennsylvania, however luke- warm some may have thought the patriotism of her delegates, no one before the Declaration of Indepen- dence was adopted supposed for a moment that private interest or personal ambition was a motive which led any one of them to espouse the popular cause. They were all men whose position, reputation, and fortune were firmly established at the outset of the Revolu- tion, and in these respects they had everything to lose by becoming popular leaders at such a crisis. John Dickinson, at their head, was at this time, as we have seen, a man of mature years, of as high a rank as could then be reached by a Colonist, of large fortune, and of a professional reputation that made his name known throughout the continent. His private inter- est, selfishly considered, was to support the ministry, and we cannot doubt that his influence on that side would have been purchased by the highest rewards which the royal government had to bestow. In that path only, as it then appeared to a man like Galloway, was the prospect of promotion and advancement ; but the earnestness and depth of Dickinson's convictions concerning the ministerial pretensions were such that he did not hesitate to obey the dictates of his con-
DIFFERENT RACES IN PENNSYLVANIA. *3i
science, to sacrifice even his loyalty to his king (which in him had been a sentiment of intense earnestness), and to abandon his friends who differed *from him, many of whom had given him their warmest sympathy and support from his early manhood.
If further justification of the course persistently pur- sued by Pennsylvania and the leaders here is needed, it is to be found in the peculiar position of the Prov- ince during the ten years preceding the Revolution. The population here, although greater than that of any other of the Colonies except Virginia, was, as we have seen, of a composite order : one-third were said by Dr. Franklin to have been English Quakers, one-third to have been Germans, and the other third to have been made up of a variety of races, chief among which were the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. This difference in races and religion was, as we have shown, the first great ob- stacle to unity of political action. There had been a bitter contest, prolonged through many years, between the friends and the opponents of the Proprietary gov- ernment ; on each side of this question were arrayed the most prominent public men of the Province. The Quakers as a body had forsaken the Proprietary party, and, although they returned to the support of the char- ter when they discovered what sort of constitution the popular party proposed to substitute for it, yet they soon became divided on other grounds. The Scotch- Irish Presbyterians, as was to be expected, were most ardent in their opposition to the ministry, for they re- membered only too well the tyranny from which their ancestors had suffered in their native country, which had destroyed the woollen industry in Ireland, and the
i32 RECEPTION OF NEW ENGLAND DELEGATES.
shocking1 attempt which was made to disqualify them from holding there any office unless they had sub- scribed the* religious test of that day. They had here, as inhabitants of the frontier settlements, a peculiar grievance, a long-standing quarrel with the Quakers, who controlled the Assembly, and who, they alleged, had refused, in consequence of religious scruples, to protect them from the attacks of the French and In- dians : hence the sympathy between these two sections of the population was not remarkably warm or active.
The New England delegates found on their arrival in Philadelphia, in September, 1774, that the rumors which they had heard that the people in this part of the country did not favor independence were well founded. Not only did the Quakers seem cold, but others also conspicuous in public life, Yet they were politely received by all. Those who then composed what was called the society of the place formed, it must not be forgotten, an array of men distinguished in public and private life such as could be found at that time nowhere else on the continent. Among the more prominent of these were the Pennsylvania mem- bers of the Congress, Messrs. Dickinson, Wilson, Mor- ris, Willing, and Humphreys, — the first, as we have said, with a reputation as a statesman already conti- nental, the second probably the most eminent jurist of his day, and the third, with his partner, Thomas Willing, a member of one of the largest mercantile firms in America at a time when the term " merchant prince" had a significance which it has now lost. Besides, among the prominent lawyers were the Chief Justice, Chew, Edward Tilghman, William and Andrew Allen, McKean,
SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. *33
Reed, and Galloway, — all bred in the Temple, and all having imbibed there the traditional English view of the public questions at that v time under 'discussion. There were, too, eminent physicians and men of learn- ing who added to the social attractions of the place : Morgan, Rush, and Shippen, father and son, who had founded the first medical school on this continent, which even then gave promise of its future renown ; Provost Smith, regarded by his contemporaries as a prodigy of learning, and spoken of even by John Adams as " very able ;" Rittenhouse, the greatest nat- ural philosopher of the time, according to Jefferson ; and Vice-Provost Allison, regarded by President Stiles of Yale College as the best classical scholar of his day in this country. These men all discussed the burning questions of the hour in a large and comprehensive spirit ; and doubtless the society of such men, rein- forced as it then was by that of the delegates from the other Colonies, must have taught the New England delegates many things which they needed to know, if harmony of sentiment throughout the country was to be reached. The impression produced on the minds of the delegates by their intercourse with the enlight- ened men they met at Philadelphia was not, if we are to judge by their correspondence and their diaries, a very favorable one. They were quick enough to see that their political opinions were associated in the minds of those they met not merely with the pre- tensions of a narrow and levelling Puritanism, but also with the encouragement of lawless and disorderly acts. The Committees of Safety, the "Sons of Lib- erty," the caucus, and various other devices which New
MEETING OF THE CONGRESS.
England had invented for rousing and organizing the passions of the multitude, although shortly to be intro- duced here, were then regarded by the sober, conser- vative, and law-abiding people of this part of the coun- try as forms of mob violence, and as such these political manifestations were extremely distasteful to them. The truth is, our people had not then been educated in rev- olutionary methods, and, Quakers as they were, they could not appreciate the value of that " higher law" which was invoked as their guide.
The Continental Congress met at the Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia on the 5th of September, 1774, fifty-five delegates being present, representing twelve Colonies, — Georgia having sent none. In a body so loosely jointed together the first condition of strength and vigor was the vital union of all its parts. In this respect there was much left to be desired, as became more and more apparent during its sessions. In one thing only all were agreed, and that was that they were all suffering from an intolerable common grievance. But as to the best mode of securing redress, opinions vibrated between the scheme of Galloway (which, far from being original, had been long known and advo- cated by many of the most prominent Quakers), which looked to a closer union with Great Britain under new conditions, and that of absolute independence, which was the theory of Samuel Adams and his friends. Be- tween these two extremes there were many schemes to secure a return to harmony strongly urged by their authors, the discussion of which served only to create confusion and dissension in the Congress. This, of course, was in addition to the disturbing causes to
DIVERSE OPINIONS AND INTERESTS. *35
which we have referred arising from differences of race, habits, and interests, and environment generally. A strong test of the patriotism of the delegates was found in the willingness of each to subordinate for the moment his favorite theories to the plan which would gain the common consent and could be pre- sented to the world as a united expression not only of the discontent of the Colonies but of the appropriate remedy. On the whole, the delegates bore this test pretty well, and the result of their united deliberations is expressed in some of the noblest state papers in the English language. As Daniel Webster said of them, speaking to young men, " If you want to love your country, master the contents of these immortal papers, and become imbued with their sentiments." In the in- terest of harmony in the Congress, unity of expression, if not of sentiment, was regarded as absolutely essential to any hope of redress. The delegates from Massa- chusetts, who, there is reason to believe, came here with an intense desire for independence in their hearts, were warned not to allow their wish to pass their lips. Be- fore their arrival they were told by men of their own party here, such as Mifflin, Bayard, and Rush, that if they talked of independence in the Congress they would destroy their influence. Whatever they may have thought, they were wise enough to keep their thoughts concealed. Every precaution was taken, by closing the doors of the hall and pledging the mem- bers to secrecy, lest the public should suspect that there was any want of harmony in the deliberations of the delegates.
The advice given to Mr. Adams and his colleagues
GALLOWAY'S PROPOSAL.
on their arrival does not seem to have been thrown away. " We have," he writes to William Tudor about this time, " numberless prejudices to remove here. We have been obliged to act with great delicacy and cau- tion. We have been obliged to keep ourselves out of sight, and to feel pulses and to sound depths; to in- sinuate our sentiments, designs, and desires by means of other persons, sometimes of one Province, and some- times of another." The other extreme party, that of Mr. Galloway, was not so prudent. Notwithstanding all that has been said to Galloway's discredit, there is no evidence that he was at this time a hypocrite and villain, as it has been customary to represent him. He called himself a Whig, and he was strongly opposed to the ministry but thoroughly loyal to the Crown. He thought, with many of the best people in the Middle and Southern Colonies, that what was most needed was a closer, not a looser, union with Great Britain. He therefore proposed a scheme which provided for the appointment of a President-General, as he called him, who should be appointed by the English government, and who should be assisted by a council made up of a certain number of persons chosen by the Assembly of each Colony. Certainly there was nothing treasonable or unpatriotic in this proposition, and although it re- ceived, according to Mr. Adams and to Mr. Galloway (in his examination before a committee of the House of Commons), the votes of five out of twelve Colonies, the proceedings concerning it were expunged from the journal as if they had never taken place. The only party in this famous Congress which acted openly and honestly was the Whig or Constitutional party, led by
MEASURES ADOPTED BY CONGRESS. *37
Mr. Dickinson. It knew exactly what it wanted, the repeal of the laws violating the rights of the Colonies since the treaty of 1 763, and it asked for that repeal by the method which it had always been taught was the constitutional one, — viz., by petition and remon- strance. The moderate party controlled the Congress, and by the moderate party is meant that which agreed with General Washington in the opinion which he ex- pressed in a letter written on the Qth of October, 1774, to Captain Mackenzie, " No such thing as independence is desired by any thinking man in North America," and in that of John Adams of the same date, "If it is the opinion of any that Congress will advise offensive measures, they will be mistaken."
The Congress refused alike to listen to any alleged violations of the " law of nature," or to favor the sys- tem of federation suggested by Galloway. Having settled exactly the grounds of complaint, it set forth a " Declaration of Rights" of the Colonists, following the English precedent when William and Mary were called to the throne in 1688. It agreed upon a " Petition to the King," in which it asserted in the most positive manner the loyalty of his American subjects, but insisted upon the observance of their fundamental rights as Eng- lishmen. It asked more especially that eleven Acts of Parliament, or parts of them, which violated those rights, should be repealed. It issued addresses to the English people, and to the inhabitants of the newly- acquired Province of Quebec, in which the position and intentions of the Americans as loyal subjects were carefully defined. It agreed upon an " Association" and a non-importation agreement, by which the subscribers
CONDITION OF BOSTON.
bound themselves neither to import nor to use English goods until their grievances were redressed. All these resolutions were adopted with striking unanimity. Then came Galloway's proposition concerning federation, which was rejected.
It will be understood that during the session of Con- gress the condition of Boston, which was that of a " state of siege," must have painfully preoccupied the minds of the members, as it was indeed the immediate cause of their meeting. Doubtless Congress felt that some special expression of sympathy, framed in the strongest terms which they could employ consistently with their declarations of loyalty to the king and their desire for reconciliation which they had just professed in their Declaration of Rights and in the Petition, should be made. Instead of adopting expressions on this subject couched in the same sober, dignified, and statesmanlike language as had been employed in the other documents, Boston's own statement of her case, made in the most passionate and inflammatory language, in what were called the " Suffolk Resolutions," was approved. Being surprised on the loth of October by some alarming rumors that hostilities had already begun there, Con- gress on that day resolved (though not unanimously), "That this Congress approve the opposition of the inhabitants of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay to the execution of the late acts of Parliament, and if the same shall be attempted to be carried into execution by force, in such case all America ought to support them in their opposition." When this resolution was offered, the delegates from Pennsylvania feared that if it should pass it would shut the door to all hope of
THE SUFFOLK RESOLUTIONS. 139
reconciliation. There was a strong feeling among them that the Province was being prematurely dragged into a war which they could not approve, and to which not only their constituents but the people in the Middle and Southern Colonies generally were wholly opposed. George Ross, one of the Pennsylvania delegates, had the boldness at this juncture to propose that Massa- chusetts should be left to her own discretion in matters of government, and Galloway seconded his motion ; but the feeling of sympathy for Boston was so strong and sincere thaf the proposition was defeated.
This was the vote which more than anything else hardened the heart of George III. in the beginning of the contest, and made him doubt the sincerity of all the professions of loyalty which were made in the Petition and the other papers adopted by Congress. Indeed, there is an inconsistency in attempting to reconcile a determination to aid persons with an armed force who are in rebellion against the king with professions of loyal attachment and obedience to that king. It has been said that this vote was the result of a false alarm of an attack upon Boston. On the loth of October, the day on which it was adopted, Congress wrote a letter to General Gage, who was in command there, complaining of his supposed acts. On the 2Oth, Gen- eral Gage replied, "Not a single gun has been pointed against the town ; no man's property has been seized or hurt except the king's ; no troops have given less cause for complaint, and greater care was never taken to prevent it; such care was never more necessary from the daily insults and provocations given both to officers and soldiers. The communication between the
140 DICKINSON'S POSITION IN CONGRESS.
town and the country has always been open and un- molested, and is so still."
Although the full effect of the conciliatory policy adopted by the Congress in the addresses and declara- tions which it issued was somewhat marred by this un- looked-for contretemps of a supposed attack upon Boston, these papers still remain among the most memorable and instructive documents of our history. The true American feeling at that time is to be gathered from them, and not from the sayings and doings of panic- stricken Boston. Not one of them, it is believed, was prepared by a New England member. The address to the people of the Colonies was written by Richard Henry Lee ; that to the other inhabitants of British America, and the Declaration of Rights, by Mr. Jay.
Mr. Dickinson was a member of the Congress of 1774 scarcely more than a week, having taken his seat on the 1 7th of October, and the Congress having adjourned on the 26th. He had been elected a mem- ber of the Assembly of the Province in the beginning of October, and was shortly afterwards chosen as a delegate to the Congress, having been up to this time excluded, as he always thought, by Galloway's influ- ence. During his short membership he left an in- effaceable mark of his influence upon its records. It was he who wrote the most memorable paper adopted by the Congress, the famous Petition to the King, de- scribed by an historian " as penned with extraordinary force and animation, in many parts rising to a very high strain of eloquence ;" and also the address to the people of Canada, a paper which explains more fully the principles of English constitutional liberty and their
LORD CHATHAM AND THE CONGRESS. 141
foundation in English law than any on the same sub- ject in the language, the essays and speeches of Burke not excepted. Well did these noble and masterly ex- positions of our claims deserve the tribute paid to them by Lord Chatham : " History, my Lords, has been my favorite study, and in the celebrated writings of an- tiquity I have often admired the patriotism of Greece and Rome ; but I must declare and avow that in the master states of the world I know not the people nor the Senate who in such a complication of difficult circumstances can stand in preference to the Dele- gates of America assembled in General Congress at Philadelphia."
There is not a single word in either of these docu- ments which betokens the "timid apathetic spirit" at- tributed by Mr. Bancroft at this time to Mr. Dickinson. Far from it. They treat the idea of submission with scorn ; they claim redress, not as a favor, but as a right, because when it was refused clearly-established law was violated. They rest their hope for the restoration of harmony upon this basis, that they can enforce the conviction of the justice of their claims upon the minds of those whom they are addressing. They disdain, therefore, to make use of that declamatory rhetoric so commonly employed at that time in certain quarters in making complaints, a style made up alternately of blustering threats and fawning flattery, and which pro- duced no other effect upon those addressed than to irritate them still more and to increase their insolence. It must be remembered that at this time the object of the great majority of the delegates to the Congress was conciliation founded upon a recognition of our
142 FIRST PETITION TO THE KING.
legal rights, and that Congress was not asking openly for reconciliation while secretly it was taking measures to secure independence. It was, indeed, the belief of the English ministry that we were not sincere in our professions, for they seemed strangely inconsistent with the lawless acts of the people of New England. The Secretary for the Colonies in London did not hesi- tate to say to the Colonial agents there that, although our addresses were expressed in a " decent and re- spectful tone," our acts gave the lie to the professions we made in them of loyalty. This feeling was so well settled in the mind of the minister that, although he promised to lay the Petition and the addresses before the king and the Parliament, the king, it would appear, never received them, and the papers were sent, as Dickinson afterwards said, to the House of Commons "huddled up in a mass," the bundle being labelled "American papers."
The Petition to the King is the production of a man who, while he felt keenly our wrongs, was a thorough loyalist at heart. It is a clear and logical statement of our grievances, and in dignified expression of lofty polit- ical sentiment, framed in an English style characterized by force, simplicity, and good taste, it is unsurpassed by any state paper issued during the Revolution. It ad- dresses the king in a tone far more of sorrow than of anger, and speaks of the wrongs we have suffered as abuses of the royal authority. In a manner calculated to flatter the pride of a constitutional sovereign, it pro- ceeds, with that tone of " proud submission and dignified obedience" of which Burke speaks, so characteristic of the Englishman at his best, to tell the king that " the
DICKINSON'S AUTHORSHIP DISPUTED. M3
apprehension of being degraded into a state of servi- tude from the pre-eminent rank of English freemen, while our minds retain the strongest love of liberty and clearly foresee the miseries preparing for us and our posterity, excites emotions in our breasts which we should not wish to conceal. We apprehend that the language of freemen cannot be displeasing to your Majesty. Your royal indignation, we hope, will rather fall on those designing and dangerous men who, daringly interposing themselves between your royal person and your faithful subjects, and for several years past inces- santly employed to dissolve the bonds of society by abusing your Majesty's authority, misrepresenting your American subjects, and prosecuting the most desperate and irritating projects of oppression, have at length compelled us by the force of accumulated injuries, too severe to be any longer tolerable, to disturb your Majesty's repose by our complaints." '
1 Mr. Dickinson's authorship of this famous letter to the king was questioned by Chief Justice Marshall in his "Life of Washington." He there stated that it was generally believed to have been written by Richard Henry Lee. For reasons which will appear in the following correspondence, this erroneous statement affected Mr. Dickinson very deeply, and he took the trouble of proving by the Journals of Con- gress that he was the sole author of the Petition to the King. He wrote at once on the subject to his friend Dr. George Logan, one of the Senators from Pennsylvania, who communicated with the Chief Justice. The result, as will be seen, was highly satisfactory to Mr. Dickinson. The correspondence has an additional interest as referring incidentally to Mr. Dickinson's opinion of Washington.
John Dickinson to George Logan.
DEAR KINSMAN, — Having subscribed for two sets of General Washington's Life by John Marshall, I lately received the second
M4 DICKINSON DEFENDS HIS CLAIM.
The address of Mr. Dickinson to the inhabitants of Canada in regard to the form of government imposed on the inhabitants of that country after the conquest by the " Quebec Act" is written in the same elevated and
volumes of those sets ; and, on looking over one of them, I found a reflection cast by the Chief Justice upon my character, that has sur- prised and hurt me.
In page 180, after concluding extracts from the first petition, in 1774, to the king, he says, in a note, " The committee which brought in this admirably well-drawn and truly conciliatory address were Mr. Lee, Mr. John Adams, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Henry, and Mr. John Rutledge. The original composition has been generally attributed to Mr. Lee."
Here the Chief Justice has committed a mistake directly contra- dicted by the record, perhaps owing to his having attended only to the first resolution of Congress respecting an address to the king, which was in these words :
"Saturday, October ist, 1774.
" Resolved unanimously, That a loyal address to his Majesty be pre- pared, dutifully requesting the royal attention to the grievances that alarm and distress his Majesty's faithful subjects in North America, and entreating his Majesty's gracious interposition for the removal of such grievances ; thereby to restore, between Great Britain and the Colonies, that harmony so necessary to the happiness of the British Empire, and so ardently desired by all Americans. Agreed, that Mr. Lee, Mr. J. Adams, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Henry, and Mr. Rutledge be a committee, to prepare an address to his Majesty." — -Journals of Congress, vol. i. p. 22.
At that time I was not in Congress, having been kept out by J. Galloway and his party till the session of Assembly after the new election in that year. This appears from the following entry in the Journals, p. 31 :
" Monday, October I7th, 1774.
" Mr. John Dickinson appeared in Congress as a deputy for the Province of Pennsylvania, and produced his credentials, as follows :
CORRESPONDENCE ON THE SUBJECT. *45
masterly style as the Petition to the King. It is, in fact, a treatise upon the great guarantees of freedom which England provides for all her subjects whose allegiance she claims. He insists that by this act the
"'
A.M. "'In Assembly, October I5th, 1774.
" ' Upon motion by Mr. Ross, ordered, that Mr. Dickinson be and he is hereby added to the committee of deputies appointed by the late Assembly of this Province, to attend the general Congress now sitting in the city of Philadelphia on American grievances.'
" The same being approved, Mr. Dickinson took his seat as one of the deputies for the Province of Pennsylvania."
The next entry in the Journals concerning the Address to the King is in these words, in page 56 :
" Friday, October 2ist, 1774.
" The Address to the King, being brought in, was read, and after some debate, ordered, that the same be recommitted, and that Mr. J. Dickinson be added to the committee."
The next entry relating to this subject is in these words, in page
57:
" Monday, October 24th, 1774.
" The committee to whom the Address to the King was recom- mitted reported a draft, which was read, and ordered to be taken into consideration to-morrow."
" Tuesday, October 25th, 1774.
" The Congress resumed the consideration of the Address to his Majesty, and the same being debated by paragraphs was, after some amendments, approved and ordered to be engrossed."
Thus it is manifest that the Address agreed to by Congress was not brought in, as the Chief Justice states, merely by the committee first appointed upon that business, but by the persons to whom it was "recommitted" — that is, by the five gentlemen who were first appointed, and by me who had been added to them on the 2ist of October, as is before mentioned.
The truth is, that the draft brought in by the original committee was written in language of asperity very little according with the conciliatory disposition of Congress.
JO
146 ADDRESS ON THE " QUEBEC ACT."
great principles which the English law lays down as fundamental — viz., that the people shall have a share in their government; that their representatives shall
The committee, on my being added to them, desired me to draw the address, which I did, and the draft was reported by me.
I have said that the Chief Justice has cast a reflection upon my character, and a very severe one it is, from whatever cause it has proceeded.
The severity of his reflection arises from this circumstance. In the year 1800, two young printers applied to me for my consent to publish my political writings, from which they expected to derive some emolument. I gave my consent, and in the following year they published in this place two octavo volumes, as my political writings.
This publication being made in the town where I reside, no per- son of understanding can doubt that I must be acquainted with the contents. Of course I must be guilty of the greatest baseness, if, for my credit, I knowingly permitted writings which I had not com- posed to be publicly imputed to me, without a positive and public contradiction of the imputation. This contradiction I never have made, and never shall make, conscious as I am that every one of those writings was composed by me.
The question, whether I wrote the first Petition to the King is of little moment, but the question, whether I have countenanced an opinion that I did write it though in reality I did not, is to me of vast importance.
If I had any acquaintance with the Chief Justice, I would im- mediately write to him, upon the injury he has done to me, entertain- ing, as I do, from the accounts I have received of his good qualities, a hope that he would be disposed to do me justice by correcting his error in the third volume of his work, soon to be published.
But, as we are strangers one to the other, I earnestly wish my friend to write to him on the subject, as soon as his convenience will permit. This favor will much oblige
Thy truly affectionate cousin,
JOHN DICKINSON.
WILMINGTON, the i$th of the Qth mo., 1804.
To DR. G. LOGAN.
DICKINSON AND GENERAL WASHINGTON. M7
have the absolute right of voting supplies ; and that the trial by jury, the liberty of the person, and the free- dom of the press shall be preserved inviolate — are all
Chief Justice Marshall to Dr. Logan.
RICHMOND, January 28th, 1805.
SIR, — Your letter of the lyth inst., enclosing an extract of one from Mr. Dickinson, reached me only to-day. This delay is in some measure attributable to my inattention to the post-office, and in some measure to the impediments to the mail occasioned by the bad weather.
I lament sincerely that any mistake should have arisen respecting the author of the Petition to the King. I did most certainly believe that it came from the pen of Mr. Lee. I had heard so at the time, and this report appeared to me to derive much probability from his being the person first named on the committee. It may have origi- nated in his having drawn that which was not approved. The subse- quent appointment of Mr. Dickinson on the committee escaped my attention. It being my object to state the address itself, without ad- verting to the changes it experienced in passing through Congress, I did not attend to the recommitment of it. The book mentioned in the extract I never saw. Had it been in my possession I certainly should not have been unmindful of the which finding this paper
among the political tracts of that gentleman would have suggested.
The willingness manifested by Mr. Dickinson to attribute this accident to improper motives I can readily excuse ; nor will it in any degree diminish the alacrity with which I shall render him the justice to which he is entitled.
With great respect,
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
J. MARSHALL.
THE HONBLE. GEORGE LOGAN, Washington.
John Dickinson to Dr. Logan.
I wish the author to be informed that I am very sensible of the candor with which he has been pleased to rectify the note in the second volume of his work.
I disliked several parts of General Washington's conduct as a
148 THE CONGRESS ADJOURNS.
placed at the mercy of an absolute governor, who is responsible only to a profligate minister at home who may rule them as he will.
When the Congress adjourned on the 26th of Oc- tober, the delegates generally, and John Dickinson especially, were not sanguine of preserving peace. "Delightful as peace is," he said, "it will be all the more gratifying because unexpected." Who had de- stroyed the hopes of that reconciliation for which he had worked so long and so faithfully? He could not help feeling that the Congress had yielded to pity and sympathy what their calmer judgments would have refused.
Notwithstanding, however, the gloomy apprehen- sions of Dickinson as to the failure of measures of conciliation, he did not slacken his zeal or abate his efforts to secure the ratification of the acts of the Congress by the legislatures of the different Colonies. The Assembly of Pennsylvania was the first to confirm the proceedings of the Congress, as it was the first,
commander, and as a statesman. They were, in my opinion, errors, committed not for want of abilities, but for want of that informa- tion which a more extensive acquaintance with history would have afforded.
However, I always considered him as a great and good man. His honesty and firmness throughout our severe contest establish his character in a most conspicuous and endearing light.
I had a strong conviction of the difficulties he had to encounter ; but yet I had not such a knowledge of them, and consequently not such a knowledge of his merits in the services he rendered to his country, as I have acquired since I read the second volume of the History now publishing. His memory must be affectionately cherished by every true American, by every friend to liberty.
PENNSYLVANIA RATIFIES ITS ACTS. U9
thirteen years afterwards, to ratify the Constitution of the United States. It met on the loth of December: there was a large number of Quakers in the Assem- bly, yet the acts of the Congress which complained of their grievances were unanimously approved. This action seems to have caused no little surprise among those who thought that they knew the composition of that body well, and especially the Quaker feeling. Mr. Reed, writing to Lord Dartmouth, the American Secre- tary, says that the vote was expressive of " the appro- bation of a large number of Quakers in the House, a body of people who have acted a passive part in all the disputes between the mother-country and the Col- onies." Nothing could be more significant, as showing how completely united were the people of all classes in Pennsylvania, and how successful had been the man- agement of Dickinson in securing such a vote in oppo- sition to the influence of Galloway and those of his followers (and there were not a few of these) who were royalists quand meme.
Besides the unanimous formal approval of the pro- ceedings of the Congress by the Assembly, there was an earnest effort made in Pennsylvania by Dickinson and his friends to enlist popular sympathy and support in aid of the strict enforcement of the non-importation agreement. This effort proved in a great measure successful, and the " Association/* as it was called, be- came what agreements of a similar nature had not been hitherto, — a reality. With this object in view, the Com- mittee of Correspondence, of which Mr. Dickinson was chairman, summoned a second meeting of the Con- vention which had been held during the past summer.
150 THE SECOND PROVINCIAL CONVENTION.
This second Convention, like its predecessor, was sim- ply a popular body, and one whose acts had no formal legal sanction and whose decision could be enforced only by general public opinion ; it met at the close of January, 1775. Mr. Dickinson, the chairman of the committee, having proposed that Mr. Joseph Reed should be the chairman, stated the reasons which had led to the call of the Convention. He said that while " it is the most earnest wish and desire of all to see harmony restored between Great Britain and the Col- onies, this body should emphasize the opinion that the commercial opposition pointed out by the Continental Congress, if faithfully adhered to, will be the means of rescuing this unhappy country from the evils meditated against it." He then proposed, and the Convention adopted his proposal, that the non-importation agree- ment should be faithfully observed, and that various kinds of domestic manufacture should be undertaken in order to render us independent of England for the supply of our wants. In these proposals we find only the echoes of the opinions he had always maintained on this subject.
On the Qth of March, 1775, the governor (John Penn) sent a message to the Assembly, suggesting that in the present critical condition of affairs it would be more respectful to the authorities at home that each Colony should state its peculiar grievances in petitions sepa- rately, rather than that a common complaint should be made by a Congress of all. The answer of the Assembly is worth quoting, as showing the intensity and earnestness of the feeling which prevailed in Penn- sylvania, and her loyal adhesion to those of her sister
PROPOSAL TO SEND SEPARATE PETITIONS. *5J
Colonies who were then suffering. At this very time she has been represented as being ready, under Quaker influence and the leadership of Dickinson, to yield everything for the sake of peace. They tell the gov- ernor, in their answer to his message, that, if there was no other objection to his proposition, it seemed to them that it would be dishonorable to adopt it, and to desert the other Colonies which were connected by a union founded on just motives and mutual faith and con- ducted by general councils. They rejected with dis- dain the proposition of the House of Lords that each Colony should vote its own supplies under certain con- ditions. They were unwavering in their determination when the battle of Lexington had brought affairs to a crisis.1 On the 9th of May, 1775, tnev gave tneir m" structions to their honored and trusted delegates (Gal- loway having declined to be a candidate, and having retired to Bucks County to meditate "going over," as afterwards appeared) in a very few but pregnant words : " You shall meet the delegates to the Congress about to assemble, and you shall exert your utmost endeavors
1 Mr. Dickinson, Mr. Jay, and Mr. Wythe were sent by Congress to warn the Assembly of New Jersey not to send petitions singly, as Lord North desired. Mr. Dickinson said to the Assembly, "The eyes of all Europe are upon us. Until this controversy the strength and im- portance of this country were not known ; the nations of Europe look with jealous eyes on the struggle. Britain has natural enemies, France and Spain ; France will not sit still and suffer Britain to conquer. All that Britain wanted was to procure separate petitions, which we should avoid ; it would break our Union, and we should become a rope of sand. He repeated, that neither mercy nor justice were to be expected from Britain." Mr. Jay and Mr. Wythe supported Mr. Dickinson. — New Jersey Archives, vol. x., First Series.
152 MILITARY FORCE RAISED.
to agree upon and recommend such further measures as shall afford the best prospect of obtaining redress of American grievances and of restoring union and harmony between Great Britain and her Colonies.3' Messrs. Franklin, Thomas Willing, and James Wilson were then chosen additional delegates.
On the 23d of June a petition was presented to the Assembly by the Committee of Correspondence of the City and Liberties, urging that "a military force should be raised, and that a Committee of Safety and of De- fence should be organized, composed either of members of the Assembly or of others, as might seem most de- sirable, who should be clothed with discretionary powers to act in case of invasion or of threatened invasion, and that they should have power to appropriate such public moneys as may be already raised, or to raise such further sums on credit or otherwise as may be necessary." A resolution adopting these recommendations was at once passed with great unanimity, and John Dickinson was made chairman of the committee. Of course the gov- ernor's instructions from the Proprietaries would not justify his approval of such an expenditure. All this action was revolutionary in its character, and can be defended only on the plea of an overruling necessity ; but it is at least strong proof of the absolute confi- dence felt by all parties, at that time, not merely in the sagacity but in the integrity of Mr. Dickinson. This most important and responsible trust he held, with the entire approval of the body that appointed him, for more than a year. In pursuance of the resolution of the Assembly, a " military association," as it was called, was formed in Philadelphia, and the example was followed
PECULIARITIES OF THE ASSOCIATORS. ^53
by the interior counties soon after. The " associators" in this county numbered in a short time four thousand three hundred men, and throughout the Province vol- unteers came forward in numbers sufficient to form fifty-three battalions. It soon became necessary for the officers to apply to the Assembly for the passage of a law which should provide for their proper military organization and discipline, and such a law was passed on the 30th of June, 1775. Of the first battalion raised in the city John Dickinson was elected colonel, a pretty strong proof, one would suppose, that the earnestness of his resistance by force, should it become necessary, was believed in by those who appointed him.
The military force which was organized by Pennsyl- vania at the beginning of the Revolution was peculiar to that Province. Its peculiarity was in a great meas- ure due to the unwillingness of the Quakers, who formed so large a part of the population of the Prov- ince, to submit to compulsory military service in the militia. At this time there was, indeed, no enrolled and organized militia force in the Province. It had been found impossible, as we have seen, as far back as 1 747, to induce the Quaker members of the Assem- bly to agree to organize such a force by law. They defended their action (so far as the legal liability was concerned) by appealing to the well-known maxim of the English common law, that under no English tenure could a man who procured a substitute be forced to serve in the king's levies in person, and to certain provisions of the charter of Pennsylvania which they claimed exempted those who were conscientiously scrupulous from bearing arms. The Quakers con-
154 NATURE OF MILITARY FORCE HERE.
tended that their action did not embarrass the public service ; that there were in Pennsylvania many men at all times willing to serve as soldiers if the govern- ment would enroll them. The Proprietary govern- ment had always been unwilling to employ these vol- unteers, because it was insisted that their officers should be elected by the men, and not appointed by the governor. This controversy had led to a perma- nent estrangement between the Proprietaries and the Quakers in regard to the employment of a military force. The latter were represented in England as unwilling to defend the Province because they insisted that the military force should be composed of volun- teers, and not of those serving under compulsion, and that they should be paid and maintained by taxes levied upon all the Proprietary estates as they were laid on those of others.
Such was the historical position of the Quakers towards enlistments in the military service in provin- cial days. Franklin in 1 747, upon an alarm which had arisen lest the Spanish pirates who had appeared in the Delaware Bay might attack the shipping and the towns on the river, formed an association of volunteers for the defence of the Province ; but, happily, as peace was shortly afterwards declared, there was no occasion for the services of the thousand men who had been enrolled by him. This experiment set the fashion of recruiting men for the military service in subsequent years, and it continued the favorite method in case of emergencies, and when it was impossible to await the settlement of the long-standing quarrel between the governor and the Assembly on this subject, up to the date of the
VOLUNTEERS AS OPPOSED TO MILITIAMEN. *55
Revolution. There was not the smallest practical incon- venience in raising a military force of this description, as there were always plenty of men ready to enlist and others desiring to receive commissions as officers ; the only difficulty was to obtain a legal consent to the enrolment of these volunteers, or, as they were called in those days, " associate rs." The outbreak of the Revolution found Pennsylvania, owing to these differ- ences between the governor and the Assembly, without a militia law or any organized military force whatever. Congress having resolved that a certain force should be raised, Pennsylvania was called upon to supply her quota of four thousand three hundred men. The cir- cumstances of the time permitting no delay, it was determined by a large public meeting held in the State-House yard that Franklin's expedient of 1747 should be adopted, and that these men should be raised and organized as " associators" or volunteers. It seems almost incredible that in a community such as the population of Pennsylvania then formed, fifty-three battalions of troops could have been raised in a few weeks. What number of men composed a battalion in those days we have sought in vain to discover: there were enough at least to form two large bri- gades, one of which was afterwards commanded by General Roberdeau, and the other by General Ewing. It seems hard to reconcile facts such as these with the traditional stories of the Quaker opposition to the war and its influence in preventing voluntary enlistments. In addition to these two brigades, "flying camps," as they were called, were established during the sum- mer of 1776 in various parts of New Jersey, composed
i56 OFFICERS OF THE BATTALIONS.
chiefly of Pennsylvania troops, and designed as ad- vanced posts to defend the Province from invasion by the British army then encamped on Staten Island. It is not to be forgotten that all these men belonged to the Province and were maintained by it, the Continen- tal army not being yet organized and ready for duty.
Dickinson was one of the foremost and most active promoters of this military movement during the sum- mer of 1775. Of the five battalions raised in this city, he was, as we have said, the colonel of the first, Daniel Roberdeau of the second, John Cadwalader of the third, Thomas McKean of the fourth, and Timothy Matlack of the fifth (artillery). From the County of Philadel- phia, William Hamilton was colonel of the sixth, Rob- ert Lewis of the seventh, Thomas Potts of the eighth, John Bull of the ninth, Tench Francis of the tenth, and Henry Hill of the eleventh. Many of the companies in these battalions had in their ranks the very elite of the young men of the city and county, — the "silk-stock- ing gentry," as they were called, — and at Amboy, at Elizabethtown, on Long Island, at Princeton, and at Brandywine, wherever, indeed, the emergency of the times called them, these volunteers did true and faith- ful service. The fatal, but perhaps necessary, defect in their organization was the shortness of the term for which they were enlisted.1
Besides the eleven battalions of " associators" sent by Phila- delphia to the field in the summer of 1776, there was enlisted a considerable number of troops for the Continental line, under the authority of a resolution of Congress adopted in January, 1776. Among these were four infantry regiments (those of St. Clair, Shee, Wayne, and Magaw), two rifle regiments (those of De Haas and
SECOND PETITION TO THE KING. *57
Mr. Dickinson thought it his duty to his constituents, even after the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill, and while he was engaged in these active measures of raising a military force, to make another effort in Con- gress to obtain peace. He has been much censured for the part which he took with this object in view, when at the same time he was preparing and advo- cating what is called the " Second Petition to the King," which was adopted by Congress in July, 1775. It must not be forgotten, however, in the first place, that, strongly as he may have urged its adoption, it was, after all, only the echo of the opinion of the majority of Congress at that time, whose watchword was then Defence, not Defiance. Exactly how great that ma- jority was we cannot tell. The United Colonies, no doubt, considered themselves as armed negotiators, and in that position more likely to obtain favorable terms. Mr. Dickinson and his friends also supposed that the king and the ministry would have learned wisdom from the lessons taught by Lexington and Bunker Hill ; but, as it turned out, the effect of this last petition to the king was directly opposite to that which they had calculated upon. It must be remem- bered, however, as Charles Thomson says, " in order to explain the great anxiety which Mr. Dickinson evinced to send forward this petition, that it was necessary to make an experiment, for without it it would have been impossible to have persuaded the bulk of the people of Pennsylvania that a humble petition, drawn up without
Hand), and two Provincial battalions, composed of fifteen hundred men (those of Miles and Atlee). They were engaged in the battle on Long Island and in the defence in November of Fort Washington.
158 MR. ADAMS OPPOSES CONCILIATION.
those clauses against which the ministry and Parliament had taken exception in the former petition, would not have met with a favorable reception and produced the desired effect."
It is now very clear that Mr. Adams and his political friends understood more correctly than did their op- ponents the extent of the pride and obstinacy of the English king and people. With the sentiment of inde- pendence always in their hearts, giving it no utterance, but guided in their policy always by it, they felt that this second petition to the king might be regarded in England as a proof of fear and weakness on our part, and would tend rather to close the door against accepta- ble terms than to open it more widely to receive them. Congress, however, relied much, as we have seen, upon Mr. Dickinson's judgment, and it is possible that it was not without a wish to administer a rebuke to those who they knew were planning for immediate independence.
As it turned out, this petition incensed to the last de- gree the New England politicians in the Congress. In the debate which preceded its adoption it would appear that they spoke very harshly of the motives and acts of those who still advocated conciliation, and especially of those of Dickinson, their leader. A speech of Sullivan of New Hampshire would seem to have particularly annoyed Dickinson, ordinarily the most amiable of men. According to Mr. Adams's statement, he rushed out of the hall in a great passion, and, meeting him (Adams) walking with a friend in the State-House yard, he suddenly cried out, " What is the reason that you New England men oppose our measures of recon- ciliation ? There now is Sullivan in a long harangue
DICKINSON AND JOHN ADAMS.
following you in a determined opposition to our pe- tition to the king ! Look ye ! — if you don't concur with us in our pacific system, I and a number of us will break off from you in New England, and we will carry on the opposition by ourselves in our own way." If this be an accurate account of the interview, it is clear that Mr. Dickinson lost his temper on this occa- sion, and that he was very properly rebuked by Mr. Adams. As to the threat of Dickinson to secede if he could not have his own way, it is so unlike anything he ever did, and it resembles so much the avowed de- termination of the New England leaders, as we shall see presently, to form a separate confederacy if Con- gress delayed in proclaiming independence, that it is possible that Mr. Adams's memory may have been betrayed by his imagination. Be that as it may, after the interview, Mr. Adams was so much ruffled by it that he went to his lodgings, and, having occasion to write a letter of introduction for a young friend of his who was going to Boston, he could not refrain from referring to the incident in this way: "A certain great fortune and piddling genius, whose fame has been trumpeted so loudly, has given a silly cast to our whole doings. We are between hawk and buzzard. We ought to have had in our hands a month ago the whole legislative, executive, and judicial of the whole continent and have completely modelled a constitu- tion," and so on in the same strain. This letter, very unfortunately, we think, for the writer and for all con- cerned, was captured by the English pickets as its bearer was crossing the Hudson, and it was soon after published in full in the English newspapers. The
160 MR. ADAMS'S LETTER.
publication of this letter produced an effect which Mr. Adams could not have anticipated. It appeared in England just at the time when the second petition to the king reached that country ; and it was at once seized upon by our adversaries there as showing how insincere were our professions of a desire for peace upon any terms short of independence, and as giving proof of the divisions among ourselves. Attention was called to the similarity of our position now to that which we had held when the first petition was sent to the king, breathing loyalty and hopes for reconciliation while at the same time we were abetting the rebellion of the people of Boston. Besides, it brought to view an im- passable gulf between those in Congress who had been so far pursuing a common remedy and those who believed that independence and not reconciliation was the real object of the war. The hall of Congress, although, happily, the public were prevented at the time from knowing what took place in their secret sessions, formed an arena for party strife and management. Mr. Adams became so embittered against Dickinson that his judgment of his conduct and motives had no longer any value. For instance, he writes, " I have always imputed the loss of Charlestown, and of the brave officers and men who fell there, and the loss of a hero more worth than all the town, to Mr. Dickinson's pe- tition [the first petition] to the king, and the loss of Quebec and Montgomery to his subsequent unceasing, though finally unavailing, efforts against independence." It is, of course, idle to argue against clamor so sense- less as this : it is only referred to as an illustration of the intensity of the opposition which existed to the
ITS EFFECT IN ENGLAND.
Declaration of Independence but one year before its adoption, not only on the part of Dickinson, but on that of a majority of the members of Congress. Let us rather turn to Dickinson's own account of his opin- ions and acts at this crisis.
On the 8th of July, the same day on which this much abused petition to the king was adopted, Mr. Dickin- son presented the report of the committee appointed to prepare a Declaration announcing to the world our reasons for taking up arms against England.1 This famous Declaration is of great historical interest, not only because it shows definitely and accurately the sen- timents of Congress at that time concerning the charac- ter and the motives of the struggle, but also because it is clear that Dickinson was chosen as the fittest in- terpreter of those sentiments. Basing our defence of rebellion against the authority of the king upon a long series of grievances, still unredressed in spite of repeated petitions and remonstrances, he asks, " But why should we enumerate our injuries in detail? By one statute it is declared that Parliament can of right make laws to bind us in all cases whatever." Here was our whole case stated in a single sentence. Then came those ringing words which, spoken in trumpet- tones to the division of General Putnam encamped
1 Mr. Dickinson's claim to the authorship of this celebrated paper had been denied by Mr. Bancroft, who stated in his history that Mr. Jefferson wrote the Declaration or the larger part of it. This matter has been so thoroughly investigated by my friend Dr. George H. Moore as to dispel any doubt on the subject. It is only necessary to refer to his paper establishing Mr. Dickinson's claim (Appendix IV.). In the later editions of his history Mr. Bancroft has corrected the error into which he had fallen.
ii
162 DECLARATION ON TAKING UP ARMS.
before Boston, were answered "by a shout in three huzzas and a loud amen :"
" We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery. . . . Our cause is just, our union is perfect, our internal re- sources are great, and, if necessary, foreign assistance is no doubt attainable. We gratefully acknowledge, as signal instances of the Divine favor towards us, that his providence would not permit us to be called into this severe controversy until we were grown up to our present strength, had been previously exercised in war- like operations, and possessed the means of defending ourselves. With hearts fortified by these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare that, exerting the utmost energies of those powers which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms which we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance employ for the preservation of our liber- ties ; being, with one mind, resolved to die freemen rather than to live as slaves." It is certainly not easy to recognize in the writer of this address that " tame and spiritless creature" who is said by Mr. Bancroft at that time to have been John Dickinson. He was then? no doubt, the foremost man in Congress, and for that very reason he had many enemies ; but it is none the less true that no man in that body saw so well as he the real necessities of the situation. Perhaps others knew best how to meet them.
From this time until the close of the year 1775 the attitude assumed by Mr. Dickinson in his " Declaration
DICKINSON TAKES ACTIVE MEASURES. ^3
of the causes of our taking up arms" seems to have been maintained in all the public manifestoes issued by Congress. During this period the stir of military preparation throughout the Colonies was incessant. At Philadelphia, Congress was engaged not only in organizing armies but in exercising the functions of an established government. It determined upon the ex- pedition to Canada, it issued bills of credit for a large sum, it established a general post-office, and, in short, was quite as much a government de facto before the Declaration as it became one de jure after it. Still, not a word came from it to the public, during all these preparations, committing us irrevocably to inde- pendence or to a final separation. It issued, during this period, two most important papers on this subject. The first was the report of the committee of which Dr. Franklin was the chairman, on the 3ist of July, concerning the proposition of Lord North, that Eng- land should make peace separately with such of the Colonies as desired to do so, on their complying with certain conditions (a favorite scheme of the ministerial party), and the other was the report presented on the 1 6th of December, in answer to the king's proclama- tion issued in August, in which the Colonists were charged, among other things, with having traitorously ordered and levied war against their king and having proceeded to an avowed and open rebellion. So care- ful was Congress that our attitude should not be misun- derstood, and that the world should know we were not levying war against the king, that it insisted that we were fighting against the claim of Parliament illegally to rule over us, and not against the royal authority.
164 THE NATURE OF ALLEGIANCE.
" While we are desirous and determined to consider dis- passionately every seeming advance towards a recon- ciliation made by that Parliament, we ask our British brethren how they would welcome articles of treaty from any power on earth when borne on the point of the bayonet by military plenipotentiaries."
In like manner, the report of December, 1775, asks, "What allegiance is it that we forget? Allegiance to Parliament ? We never owed it ; we never owned it. Allegiance to our king? Our words have ever avowed it ; our conduct has been ever consistent with it. The cruel and illegal attacks which we oppose have no foun- dation in the royal authority. We will not, on our part, lose the distinction between the king and the ministry." It is curious to note the similarity of Franklin's lan- guage at this time to that of Dickinson. To the same effect was a resolution adopted on the 3d of November, 1775, by the Congress, in answer to a request for advice from New Hampshire in regard to the estab- lishment of a new government in that Colony. It was recommended to the people there to establish such a form as should most effectually secure peace and good order in the Colony during the continuance of the dispute with Great Britain.1 These extracts from the Journal show most clearly that the views of the Mas- sachusetts delegates were not, at least to the close of the year 1775, those which found favor in the
1 In a pamphlet entitled " Congress and Independence," supposed to have been written by John Jay, and reprinted in the " Correspon- dence of John Jay," will be found a collection of extracts from the Journal of Congress showing how strongly opposed that body was to a Declaration of Independence up to June, 1776.
INSTRUCTIONS TO THE DELEGATES. 165
Congress, for there is no hint of independence in any one of them.
In perfect accord with the opinions of Gongress thus expressed, and with the general public sentiment out- side New England, was the action of the Pennsylvania Assembly. On the 4th of November, 1775, that body elected its delegates for the coming year to the Con- gress ; they were the same that had been chosen in the previous May, John Morton, the Speaker, taking the place which Galloway had held in the Congress of 1774. They were told, "You should use your ut- most endeavors to agree upon and recommend the adoption of such measures as you shall judge to afford the best prospect of obtaining the redress of American grievances, and utterly reject any proposition (should such be made) that may cause or lead to a separation from the mother-country, or a change in the form of this government" (that is, the charter government of the Province).
These instructions, like most of the important papers of the time, were drafted by Mr. Dickinson, who, it will be remembered, was a member not only of the Con- gress, but of the Assembly of the Province also, and they were adopted by that body without a dissenting voice. The delegates, as members of the Assembly, all co-operated with their fellow-members in their efforts to place the Province in a proper state of defence. Their attitude was in perfect harmony with that of Congress. At the suggestion of Mr. Dickin- son, all male white persons in the Province between the ages of sixteen and fifty years, who should not " asso- ciate" for its defence, were required to contribute
166 THE ASSEMBLY OF 1775.
in money an equivalent for the time spent by the " associators" in acquiring military knowledge. This, by the way, was the beginning of the system of mi- litia fines for non-service which prevailed for so many years in Pennsylvania under the State government. It was also agreed by the Assembly that eighty thou- sand pounds should be raised to supply the present military establishment of the Province, and a plan was adopted for levying taxes on the property of the non- associators for the benefit of the families of those who served.
The proceedings of the Assembly at this session present a valuable historical illustration of the spirit which animated our fathers at that time. It must be remembered that the Assembly was not a popular convention, like so many of the meetings of the people in different parts of the country in those days, — pro- fessing to speak with the authority of the people, but having really no responsibility and no power whatever to carry out the measures they proposed, — but that it was the legal representative body, having full power of taxation under the charter. All its members under the existing law had taken the oath of allegiance to George III. before entering upon their duties ; they were elected by a limited suffrage, and it was composed in a great measure of those whose religious principles forbade them to declare or maintain war. It is natural, then, to look upon such a body as eminently cautious and conservative, and certainly we cannot expect to find in it the enthusiastic utterances in favor of indepen- dence which had become fashionable elsewhere. But while others talked, they worked quietly and effectively,
ITS PROMINENT MEMBERS. l67
— the olive-branch in one hand, and " the lightning of Jove" in the other.
Its acts show how the love of country was an im- pulse which, at that time, had penetrated the very hearts of all classes, and they are a better index of the current of popular feeling than the many foolish stories about the " toryism of the Quakers" which have become traditional.1 The Assembly at that crisis is remarkable for another reason : never since that time has a legislative body sat in Pennsylvania which num- bered among its members so many men of force, char- acter, wealth, culture, and single-minded devotion to their country as did this memorable Assembly of 1775. Pennsylvania has doubtless gained much by the per- manent establishment of the government which was secured by our independence ; but the historian who tells the truth must confess that men like Dickinson, Potts, Miles, Morris, Roberts, Franklin, Mifflin, Morton, Gibbons, Pennock, Humphreys, Grubb, Ross, Chief Justice Allen, Montgomery, and many of their col- leagues of like temper have been sadly missed from her councils ever since. This was the last Assembly elected under the old Provincial charter, and if that charter had no other merit than that of bringing to- gether such a body of men to guide our destiny, pos- terity should be grateful to it. It cannot be doubted that among such men John Dickinson must have pos- sessed remarkable qualities to be recognized as leader, and it is most satisfactory to find that the Provincial
1 It was estimated by Dr. Rush that three-fourths of the taxes by which the war was supported in Pennsylvania were paid by non- combatants, or Tories.
168 THE OATH OF OFFICE.
Assembly terminated its existence while engaged in the most patriotic work it ever performed, while under his guidance.
An effort has been made to belittle the work of this body, so illustrious in the history of Pennsylvania, by representing that Dr. Franklin, who had been elected a member from the city, declined to take his seat in it because he was required, by a law which existed in all the Colonies as well as in Pennsylvania, to take an oath of allegiance to the king before entering upon his duties. This statement, like most of the statements of Mr. Bancroft where Dickinson is concerned, proves to be incorrect, as shown by the following letter :
"February 26, 1776.
" SIR, — I am extremely sensible of the honor done me by my fel- low-citizens in choosing me their representative in the Assembly, and of that lately conferred on me by the House in appointing me one of the Committee of Safety for this Province and a delegate to the Congress. It would be a happiness to me if I could serve the people duly in all those stations ; but, aged as I now am, I feel myself un- equal to so much business, and on that account think it my duty to decline part of it.
"I hope, therefore, that the House will be so good as to accept my excuse for not attending as a member of the present Assembly, and, if they think fit, give orders for the election of another in my place, that the city may be more completely represented.
" I request, also, that the House would be pleased to dispense with my further attendance as one of the Committee of Safety.
"I am, sir, etc.,
' ' To the Speaker of the Assembly. " " B. FRANKLIN. '
1 Dr. Franklin, it must be remembered, took the oath required by law, affirming among other things his belief in the Trinity as denned by the Athanasian Creed, before entering upon any of the various offices he held in Provincial days.
CHANGES IN THE BEGINNING OF 1776. l69
By the beginning of the year 1776 a great change had taken place in the political feeling of the country, especially in Pennsylvania. People became more and more convinced by all that was taking place around them that the king's heart was really hardened against them, and that the ministry was not to be moved from the persistent enforcement of its arbitrary measures by any appeal to its reason or to the self-interest of the trading-classes in England. Hopes of the restoration of peace and harmony by means of conciliation grew fainter and fainter every day. It became necessary, therefore, for those who had urged measures of recon- ciliation with a view of redressing our grievances, to determine whether they would agree upon the plan for a final separation, which had been advocated by the majority of the New England delegates for more than a year. So exasperated had these delegates become by the beginning of the year 1776 with the hesitancy and delay of the delegates from the Middle and South- ern Colonies, that Samuel Adams is said to have pro- posed to Dr. Franklin in January, " If none of the rest will join, I will endeavor to unite the New England Colonies in confederating ;" and Dr. Franklin is said to have replied (although the story so far as Franklin is concerned seems very apocryphal), "I approve your proposal, and if you succeed I will cast in my lot with you."
Pennsylvania was then governed, as is well known, by a charter which had been granted by William Penn in the year 1701. The New England theory was, so far as it applied to Pennsylvania (but not to their own Connecticut and Rhode Island, where there were royal
i?o EFFORTS TO PRESERVE THE CHARTER.
charters to which the same objection might have been made as was made to the Proprietary charter of Penn- sylvania), that there could be no independence of Great Britain while the Proprietary government of this Prov- ince remained in force. Hence to achieve national in- dependence it became necessary to destroy that charter of William Penn which had become dear to the people of this Province, and under which it had reached a de- gree of material prosperity far greater than that of any other Colony. This is perhaps the reason why the people of Pennsylvania did not seize upon the pros- pect of independence with as much alacrity as the people of some of the other Colonies. The result of the struggle was in the interval between the beginning of the year and the 4th of July, when independence was declared, a most disastrous one in Pennsylvania. It consumed in violent internal disputes those energies which should have been directed against the common enemy ; it bred suspicion among public men who up to this time had been united in opinion and action ; it destroyed all force and unity in the counsels of her leaders, and finally resulted in the organization and simultaneous action of two bodies, each professing to be composed of the real representatives of the people, thus disheartening many friends of order and good government, who would otherwise have been friendly to a change, by forcing the people to recognize the power of a convention which was simply a body of self-elected politicians. We cannot trace too carefully the movement in this revolutionary crisis if we desire to understand the true history of Pennsylvania during that time.
PARTIES IN PENNSYLVANIA.
Thus, in the beginning of 1776 there were two par- ties violently opposed to each other : the one insisting not only that independence should not be proclaimed until we had made at least another effort at reconcilia- tion and in the mean time had taken measures to secure it by foreign alliances and a more perfect union, but also that it should not be declared in any event until the permanency of the Provincial charter was assured ; the other, urged on by the influence of the New Eng- land delegates, contending most strenuously that we should cease at once to recognize the authority of Great Britain in any form, whether exercised directly or through the provisions of a royal charter. The leaders of the first party were Dickinson, Wilson, and Robert Morris ; and of the other, Franklin, Dr. Rush, and McKean. There were, of course, many in the Province (loyalists so called) who did not desire in- dependence even if the charter were preserved, and there were others at the opposite extreme, — followers of Thomas Paine chiefly, — who sought to substitute for the old order simply a democratical Constitution. But the extremists on either side had little influence, and the contest which was to follow began, at least, between those who differed chiefly as to the time when we should proclaim our independence ; in other words, concerning the opportuneness of a measure which had met with so much opposition. All parties were alive to the im- portance of the proposals of change that were made, involving, as they did, a complete transformation of the government, State and national. One party hesi- tated before deciding to adopt them, and the other did not. The position of Pennsylvania at this crisis was
172 PENNSYLVANIA FAVORS CONCILIATION.
of vital importance in settling the first indispensable condition of a national government, — its absolute sov- ereignty. The delegates of the extreme party in Mas- sachusetts, whose object from the beginning had been independence, sought by every means of influence they could employ to secure the support of the Pennsylvania delegates in Congress ; but their efforts were vain, for Dickinson and Wilson were not the men to be easily moved from their well-settled position.
On the Qth of January, 1776, Mr. Wilson came into the Congress with the king's speech in his hand, com- plaining that " the true state of feeling here had been misrepresented in England, and asked that an address should be issued by Congress explaining our position and stating that we had no design to set up as an independent nation." The motion was adopted by a large majority, Messrs. Cushing, Paine, and Hancock, of the Massachusetts delegation, voting for it. John Adams was at home at the time, and the Provincial Convention of Massachusetts was so exasperated by the vote that Cushing was dropped by that body from the list of delegates to the Congress for the ensuing year, Elbridge Gerry being substituted for him. As to Samuel Adams, this vote drove him almost to de- spair : with this proof of the defection of his colleagues before him, to say nothing of the opinions of the other delegates, he allowed his indignation so to master his prudence that he made the proposition to Dr. Franklin about the establishment of a separate confederacy of which we have spoken. The spectacle of the Congress in which two of its most prominent members are repre- sented as resolving to establish a separate government
INFL UENCE OF NE W ENGLAND DELE GA TES. 1 73
unless they be permitted to have their own way, is a very sad but a very suggestive one. The truth is, the patience of the delegates from the Middle and the Southern Colonies with their restless brethren was by this time well-nigh exhausted, and the long-suppressed murmurs at New England dictation burst forth in un- mistakable tones of protest. The proofs of interference of this kind by the New England delegates who, in con- cert with a party in this Province, strove to drag us into a premature declaration of independence, were said at that time to have been abundant, and some of them remain. Mr. Elbridge Gerry, the new delegate to Congress from Massachusetts, in January, 1776, wrote a letter on this subject shortly after his arrival in Phila- delphia, which is very suggestive. " Since my arrival in this city," he says, " the New England delegates have been in continual war with the advocates of the Pro- prietary interest in Congress and in this Colony. These are they who are most in the way of the measures we have proposed ; but I think the contest is pretty nearly at an end," etc. One loses patience at the coolness with which men who came here to seek our aid in restoring their charter propose as the only means of effecting their object the destruction of our own.
The influence of certain members of the Congress upon the politics of Pennsylvania, and especially upon the popular leaders there, at this crisis, is also referred to by Mr. Edward Tilghman in a letter to his father, dated February 4, 1776. He confirms Mr. Gerry's statement from an opposite point of view. He writes:
" There is reason to believe that the disposition of Congress (a majority) are in favor of reconciliation
174 MR. TILGHMAN'S LETTER.
and abhorrent from independency. The division is this : Rhode Island frequently loses a vote, having only two members, and they differing ; New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Ancient Dominion hang very much together. They are what we call vio- lent, and suspected of independency. All the others breathe reconciliation, except that the Lower Counties [Delaware] are sometimes divided by the absence of Rodney or Read. Colonel McKean is a true Presby- terian, and joins the violents. The minority are inde- fatigable, try all schemes in all shapes, act in concert, and thereby have a considerable advantage over the others, who are by no means so closely united. Some time since, Judas Iscariot [Samuel Adams] made a motion, of whose contents I am not quite certain, but it tended towards a closer confederacy, and was of such a nature that whole Colonies threatened to leave the Congress. Saml. Adams has twelve hundred pounds a year from the present Massachusetts Constitution. Franklin has hurt himself much here, and reigns only with the Presbyterian interest, which is much stronger than I could wish it to be." *
The trouble caused by these dissensions among the people of Pennsylvania, who had been hitherto practi- cally unanimous, not merely in setting forth their griev- ances, but as to the methods of redress, and the efforts
1 Among the many political parties in Pennsylvania in Provincial times, the Presbyterians, or Scotch-Irish, seem to have held at all times a distinct position. In 1764 they had preferred to retain the Proprietary government rather than submit to the direct authority of the Crown; in 1776 they were the strongest opponents of the Pro- prietary government and charter, and earnestly advocated national independence and the abolition of the Provincial charter.
ASSOCIATORS ORDERED TO NEW YORK. i?5
which were made by the popular party in the Province, aided by violent men in Congress, to induce the Assem- bly to adopt at once extreme measures, soon brought affairs here to a revolutionary crisis. The adhesion of Pennsylvania to the project of independence was abso- lutely necessary if that project was to be carried out ; Pennsylvania was the prize for which both parties were contending, and any measure which seemed likely to succeed, no matter how revolutionary or radical it might be, was regarded only as a means of gaining that object. During the whole winter this state of anarchy continued, to the destruction of all confidence among men of dif- ferent parties in the Province, and to the injury of those material interests which the welfare of the population required should be adopted.
The only bright side of the gloomy picture which this period presents is that which shows the readiness with which the " Philadelphia Associate rs " responded to a call from the Congress to march at once to the relief of New York, then supposed to be threatened with an invasion by the enemy. A detachment of three battalions was detailed for this service on February 15, under the command of Colonel John Dickinson, a man who has since been represented by persons who claim to write history as at that time the leader of those who preferred submission to resistance. The alarm of an invasion of New York soon passed over, but the readi- ness of the Philadelphia battalions and of John Dickin- son to " resist it by force " is very significant.
In the midst of this revolutionary tumult and anarchy the bewildered Assembly, the only legal representative of the people of this Province, deeply sensible of the
THE ASSEMBLY ASSAILED.
responsibility of its position, was for a long time at a loss how to act. It was most anxious to conciliate pop- ular favor, but duty to the people who had chosen it forced it to do two things : first, to preserve the charter under whose authority it acted, and, secondly, to post- pone a final separation from the mother-country until that charter was made safe, or, to use the language of the petitioners to the king in 1764, until these "privi- leges were assured." Like all representative bodies in times of peril and excitement, the Assembly made one concession after another to the popular clamor, and it turned out, as it always does at such times, that the more they yielded, the more violent became the de- mands for further concessions.
The Assembly was assailed on all sides by the indig- nant protests of the multitude, who had just discovered that this body, which up to that time had rendered as true, faithful, and effective service to the cause of Amer- ican liberty, to say the least, as the legislatures of any of the Colonies, had suddenly become incapable of in- terpreting the wishes and the aspirations of the people of Pennsylvania. A great clamor had been raised in the newspapers concerning, among other things, the oaths of supremacy and obedience to the king which all officers of the government, including the members of the Assembly, were required by law to take, under the provisions of an act passed in 1705. It was said, with some show of reason, that to swear allegiance to a king whom we were preparing to fight was an inconsistent, not to say an absurd, act. But the answer was the same that had been made by the Congress in December, 1 775, to a similar charge. " We are not fighting against the
NATURALIZATION LAWS REPEALED. *77
king," said the Congress, "but against an abuse and usurpation of the royal authority, under the cover of an act of Parliament which we regard as unconstitu- tional,— that is, out of the ordinary and established course of the English law, — and we are justified in making resistance by English tradition and example." 44 Our true course," it was said by Dickinson and his friends, " is now, as it has always been, especially if we hope to preserve our charter, to seek redress with arms in our hands, if necessary, to enforce our petition ; but as long as we seek protection in that way we must not withdraw our allegiance." It must not be forgotten that the ideal conception of what a province ought to be, in the minds of the majority of the Assembly, was its condition before 1763, and not that of an indepen- dent State. The opponents, however, of this view of affairs, in and out of the Assembly, were numerous, powerful, and active. They spared no efforts to remove the corner-stone of the temple which William Penn had builded.
On the 24th of May a resolution was offered that a committee be appointed to report upon a plan " render- ing1 the naturalization laws hitherto in force, and the oaths or affirmations of allegiance, unnecessary in all cases where they are required or have been usually taken in this Colony." Previously, however, on the 1 5th of March, a resolution had been adopted by the Assembly (the vote being twenty-three to eight) pro- viding for seventeen additional representatives in that body, — four from the city, two each from Lancaster, York, Cumberland, Berks, and Northampton, and one each from Bedford, Northumberland, and Westmore-
12
1 78 JOHN ADAMS'S RESOLUTIONS.
land. The Assembly seems to have been alarmed, not to say panic-stricken, by the popular clamor, and to have abdicated its power more rapidly even than its enemies asked for. There was one point, however, that it could not be forced to yield. It refused, April 4, to rescind the instructions which had been given to the delegates in Congress in November, 1775, and it was encouraged to insist upon those instructions by the result of the election for members of the Assembly held in the city on the ist of May. At that election three out of four of the friends of the old charter were returned. The Assembly, in the mean time, had adjourned until the 20th of that month, and in the interval Congress took in hand the affairs of Pennsylvania, and by its action wholly subverted and destroyed the old charter and all obedience to its authority.
On the loth of May, Congress, on the motion of John Adams, after much debate passed a resolution which was intended to be a death-blow to the royal authority everywhere, and to the existing Proprietary government in Pennsylvania in particular. It recom- mended to the respective Assemblies and Conventions of the United Colonies, where no government sufficient to the exigency of their affairs had been hitherto estab- lished, to " adopt such a government as shall, in the opin- ion of the representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in par- ticular and America in general." It was, of course, in- tended by this resolution that governments should be established by the authority of the people, but it became a question in Pennsylvania whether she had not already a government sufficient for " the exigency of her affairs,"
THEIR BEARING UPON PENNSYLVANIA. *79
and really under the control of the representatives of the people, as contradistinguished from that of mass- meetings. As soon as a doubt was suggested con- cerning the meaning of the resolution, Mr. Adams, our self-constituted Mentor, induced the Congress to pass another resolution, which he called a preamble, which should be explanatory. This was passed on the I5th of May, declaring " that it was absolutely irreconcilable with reason and good conscience for the people of these Colonies now to take the oaths and affirmations neces- sary for the support of any government under the Crown of Great Britain, and that it was necessary that the ex- ercise of every kind of authority under the Crown should be totally suppressed." Where the Congress got the power to direct the people of Pennsylvania to change their government for any purpose it would be difficult to explain, but it is evident from what followed that the majority in the Assembly were not disposed to submit quietly to orders which were in direct opposition to those of whom they were the only legal representa- tives. It is idle to pretend to justify these proceedings of Congress on any other ground than that they were revolutionary, and history justifies them because they were, perhaps, the necessary means for attaining what has proved to be a grand result, Let us frankly admit that the object was to remove, by reason or by force, the great obstacle that stood in the way of our indepen- dence,— the Proprietary government. Let us call these extraordinary proceedings, however, and the great men who were engaged in them on both sides, by their right names. Dickinson and Wilson at this time were the champions of law and order, as represented in the old,
i8o STRONG OPPOSITION TO THEM.
well-established government of the Province ; Franklin and McKean were revolutionists, whose sole object was the independence of the Colonies, and they were willing to pay any price for it, even to the destruction of the charter and the chance of anarchy in their own home. However desirable the end, the means employed to attain it was a simple usurpation of power. There can be no doubt that in the fiery trial of the Revolution Pennsylvania suffered more than any other Colony in order that independence might be achieved. In a most important sense she was condemned to die that others might live. She suffered from all the evils of a double revolution. Not only was her charter taken from her, — a wholly unnecessary act, as by its provisions six parts out of seven of the voters could at any time have so changed it as to reach the desired result, — but the commanding influence among the Colonies which she had up to that time enjoyed was lost when the class of men who controlled her destinies under it gave way to others. Truly, Pennsylvania was in a sad plight in the days immediately preceding the Declaration of In- dependence. The majority of her legal voters were ordered by a discontented minority of her own people, aided by a Congress whose very existence was due in a great measure to her co-operation, to sacrifice her own charter and to take anything as a substitute which the revolutionary leaders might see fit to bestow upon her.
The bewildered Assembly met again, as we have seen, on the 2Oth of May. Its right to perform the duties imposed upon it by the charter had been ques- tioned by the mass-meeting of its opponents, who had
MEETING IN THE STATE-HOUSE YARD. 181
determined that, even if the Assembly were disposed to do so, it should not be permitted to frame the new gov- ernment which Congress had ordered to be constituted in Pennsylvania. Immediately upon its assembling, a protest was presented against its undertaking to estab- lish such a government. This action had been taken by a very large meeting held in the State-House yard, which declared that "this meeting [of Whigs] should take measures to elect a Convention to frame a new Constitution." A large number of counter-petitions were then presented to the Assembly, objecting to any change of government, either by that body itself, or by any other body claiming to act in the name of the people, and objecting to any interference of Congress in the matter. Then followed a protest from the offi- cers of the five Philadelphia battalions, or some of them, headed by General Roberdeau, against the appointment of any general officers by the Assembly, many of the battalion officers declining to recognize the authority of the Assembly for such a purpose, and threatening that they would refuse to obey the orders of the gen- erals so appointed. Then came a protest from the private soldiers of these battalions to the same effect. As these men, both officers and soldiers, had all been appointed and raised by authority of the Assembly, the result of this action was to place the existing civil gov- ernment under the control of the military, — that is, under the law of force, — a condition of things in the highest degree revolutionary, and one which resulted in the total subversion of the lawful government.
In this condition of anarchy the Assembly was utterly at a loss what measures to take. It had modified the
1 82 THE MILITARY REFUSE OBEDIENCE.
fundamental laws of the Province by proposing to re- peal the naturalization laws and those requiring that all the officers of government should take the oaths or affirmations of allegiance ; it had enlarged the rep- resentation in the Assembly, giving especially more members to the western counties, whence the com- plaints of inequality had chiefly come ; but all these concessions proved of no avail so long as it would not give up the charter under which it acted. Nothing was done, in the opinion of the popular party, while this stumbling-block in the way of independence was not removed. The very men, officers and soldiers, who had been enrolled to defend, among other things, the power of the Assembly and the chartered rights of the people, had now turned against them. The As- sembly did the only thing which, in its position, it was possible for it to do : it preserved an attitude of " mas- terly inactivity." It could not be forced to rescind the instructions which prohibited the delegates in Congress from consenting to a final separation. The revolu- tionists had, however, gone too far to be foiled by so trifling an obstacle as this. They determined, there- fore, to seize upon the whole power of the State, to form a new government to suit their purposes, and to substitute the government so formed for the lawful system which was then in full operation under the charter. Nothing could well be more revolutionary, nothing less justifiable by the practice or traditions of people of English blood. Nothing, indeed, quite so anarchical as this scheme has ever been attempted since in an American community. No act in the whole course of American history would have been more
CALL FOR A CONVENTION. 183
bitterly denounced, it seems to me, than this usurpa- tion, had it not been that we have been blinded to the truth by the great results which have followed this bold assumption of power.
The leaders of the meeting held in the State-House yard on the 2Oth of May, finding the Assembly appar- ently immovable in its determination not to establish a new government and not to rescind the instructions given to the delegates in Congress in the preceding November, applied at once, as they had threatened, to the " Committee of Inspection and Observation of the City and Liberties" to call a conference of the com- mittees of the several counties, that these committees might direct the election of a Convention which should frame a new Constitution. Why it was necessary that this scheme should pass through three different com- mittees to give it validity, or how this process in any way lessened the flagrant illegality of the whole pro- ceedings, it is hard to explain. They informed the Assembly that they had taken this step, and modestly suggested to the judges of the different county courts that it would be well for them to suspend business until the new government was formed. The judges declined to follow the example set elsewhere. That a new Con- stitution for such a Province as that of Pennsylvania should be framed at such a crisis, the outgrowth of such conditions, seemed to Whigs like Dickinson and Thomson and Mifflin a solecism in politics, and they protested vehemently against the popular clamor, but to no purpose.
This congeries of committees, bound together by no legal obligations and under no legal responsibility,
1 84 MEETING OF THE CONFEREES.
really representing no one except the violent mem- bers of the Whig party who had chosen to meet in the State-House yard, joined by committees of cor- respondence from the different counties, brought into existence in a similar manner, assembled in Philadel- phia on the 1 8th of June. They called themselves " Conferees and Delegates of the people of Pennsyl- vania for forming a plan for executing the resolution of Congress passed on the i5th of May." Nothing saved this extra-legal Assembly, which proposed noth- ing less than the formation of the fundamental Con- stitution of a sovereign State, from the treatment usually bestowed on violators of the public peace and order, but the high character of the men who were at the head of the movement. Doubtless such men as Dr. Franklin and Colonel McKean persuaded them- selves that there was no other way of accomplishing what they deemed absolutely essential to the safety of the Province than a revolutionary one. Under any aspect, the experiment they made and the example they set seem to have been most dangerous and unnecessary. Not only did these conferees assume, with a perfect knowledge that they did not repre- sent the people of Pennsylvania in any sense, to order that an election should be held (of course, without legal sanction) for delegates to a Convention which should assume the sovereignty of the State and form a permanent Constitution for its people, but also, in the same assumed capacity, they sent a message to the Congress "unanimously declaring their willingness to concur in a vote of the Congress declaring the United Colonies to be free and independent States, provided
USURPATION OF POWER BY THEM. 185
that the forming of the government and the regulation of the internal police of this Colony be always reserved to the people." How this body of conferees could call themselves, except in the sense of the tailors of Tooley Street, " representatives of the people of Penn- sylvania," and how the Congress could have received such a declaration without an incredulous smile, it is hard to understand, especially as Congress had always hitherto recognized the Assembly as truly represent- ing the people. The whole transaction is a striking illustration of the manner in which the revolutionary craze at times twists the ideas and opinions of even the best and wisest men. There was no excess of power, apparently, to which these conferees did not lay claim. Among other things, they provided that each member of the proposed Convention before he took his seat should make and subscribe the following declaration of his religious faith : " I do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ his Eternal Son the true God, and in the Holy Spirit, one God blessed for evermore ; and I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be given by Divine inspiration." We think it may well be doubted whether such sovereign authority in matters ecclesiastical as well as civil was ever claimed by any deliberative body in modern times composed of people of English blood. It was the first instance of the exer- cise of such absolute despotic power in Pennsylvania, and it is to be devoutly hoped that it will prove the last, even if the pretext may be, as it was then, the security of liberty. No wonder that the calmer and wiser Whigs, who felt degraded by the manner in
1 86 THE CUMBERLAND PETITION.
which the Province was " making history," protested against these extraordinary proceedings ; but it was too late.
Meantime, the Assembly, which was still the only legal body, and whose authority had been so openly defied by the proposed Conference and Convention, was puzzled as to the course it should take in regard to the instructions which it had given to the dele- gates in Congress in the preceding November. The popular current, or at least the current moved by the populace, seemed to rush more and more rapidly towards independence. The Assembly was apparently helpless ; its military force had gone over to the side of those who were clamoring for its dissolution, and it seemed possible that the party of the conferees might be tempted to seize by force what had been de- nied it by the majority of votes. Besides, there could be no doubt that the popular feeling had changed, and was changing in favor of a final separation from Great Britain since the instructions of November had been adopted. This change is well expressed in a petition which was presented to the Assembly on the 28th of May, coming from the voters of the county of Cumberland. The petitioners say, "The prosecution of the war may require the adoption of some measures which, besides the purposes intended to be immediately produced by them, may have the tendency to weaken or even dissolve the connection between Great Britain and the Colonies. To avoid the terrible consequences of anarchy, and to prevent the best men from falling a sacrifice to the worst, it will soon become, if it has not already become, necessary to advise and to form such
VIRGINIA RECOMMENDS INDEPENDENCE. 187
establishments as will be sufficient to protect the vir- tuous and restrain the vicious members of society. As these establishments may be construed to lead to a separation from Great Britain, would it not be better to withdraw the instructions which enjoin the dele- gates not to consent to any such separation ?" These petitioners were the friends of the Assembly, and their cautious and conservative language is probably but an echo of the feeling of that body at this crisis. If any doubt still existed in the minds of the leaders of the conservatives as to the course that should be taken by the delegation, it was settled a few days after the Cumberland petition was presented by the receipt of news that the Virginia Convention had adopted on the 22d of May resolutions instructing their delegates in Congress to urge an immediate declaration of inde- pendence.
From the ist to the 4th of June, both days in- clusive, there was no meeting of the Assembly ; on the 5th the letter from Virginia announcing its action was received by that body, and on the same day a committee was appointed "by a large majority" to bring in new instructions to its Congressional del- egates. On the 8th of June the committee reported in favor of doing so. Mr. Dickinson was the chair- man of this committee, and in the midst of the revolu- tionary fury by which he was surrounded he had the courage to bid farewell to the expiring government in these noble and pathetic words : " The happiness of these Colonies has been, during the whole course of this fatal controversy, our first wish ; their reconcilia- tion with Great Britain our next: ardently have we
i88 INSTRUCTIONS OF NOVEMBER RESCINDED.
prayed for the accomplishment of both. But if we must renounce the one or the other, we humbly trust in the mercies of the Supreme Governor of the uni- verse that we shall not stand condemned before His throne if our choice is determined by that law of self- preservation which his Divine wisdom has seen fit to implant in the hearts of His creatures." The delegates were then authorized (not instructed) " to confer with the other delegates in Congress in forming such further contracts between the United Colonies, concluding such treaties with foreign kingdoms and states and adopt- ing such other measures as upon a view of all the cir- cumstances shall be judged necessary for promoting the liberty, safety, and interests of America, reserving to the people of this Colony the sole and exclusive right of regulating its internal government and police/' It will be observed that both the Assembly and the Con- vention tried to reserve to the people of Pennsylvania the power to regulate their own internal affairs. In the revolutionary storm which followed, this most im- portant provision was either made light of or forgotten, and the people of this Province were treated as if they had been identical with those who composed the mass- meeting in the State-House yard and their imitators in the different counties.
The new instructions were approved by the Assem- bly on June 8, and laid aside in order to be transcribed for their final passage on the I4th of June. When that day arrived, it appeared that there was not a quorum of members, the rules requiring that two-thirds of the whole number should be present for the transaction of business. On the i4th of June the Assembly (thirty-
ASSEMBLY LEFT WITHOUT A QUORUM. '89
six members being present) passed as the true repre- sentatives of the people of Pennsylvania the following resolution, fitting expression of their true patriotism : " Resolved, by the members of the Assembly now pres- ent, that they are earnestly desirous of carrying into effect the resolutions of Congress of the ist instant [in regard to raising the quota of troops required from this State], but there is no quorum, and there- fore we cannot proceed." The Whigs in the Assembly, by a secret understanding, had withdrawn after the 8th of June, and never again took their seats in that body, so that no quorum could be had for its organization. They took this course either because they regarded the Assembly as without any legal power since the vote of Congress of May 10-15, 1776; or because the Assembly had by the new instructions protested against any attempt to change the home government ; or because they felt that if by their withdrawal they could for a short time paralyze the action of the As- sembly, the progress of the Revolution would do the rest. At any rate, thus fell the Provincial Assembly, keeping up its shadowy existence until the close of August, 1776, a quorum for business being at no time present. Its fall raises many interesting questions, — among others, where and in whom was vested the legal authority when the assent of Pennsylvania was supposed to have been given to the Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July, 1776.
Whatever may have been the noisy demonstrations with which the news of independence was welcomed elsewhere, it was perhaps not unnatural that a Penn- sylvanian, as he looked to the future, should have been
X9° LEE'S RESOLUTION.
filled with dismal forebodings rather than with joyful anticipations. He could not but fear that the birth- throes which gave life to the nation would cause the death of that mother whom he had so dearly loved and of whose beauty and renown he had been so proud.
The resolution, which was offered in Congress on June 7 by Richard Henry Lee, in obedience to the instructions of the Virginia Convention, was a simple ratification of the act of that body which had requested Congress to declare that henceforth the United Colonies should be free and independent States. The resolution was discussed at great length during the whole month. It must be remembered that when the debate began the delegates from New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl- vania, Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina con- sidered themselves bound to oppose the resolution, either by the express wish of the Assemblies of these Colonies or by the well-known wishes of their constituents. Hence Dickinson and his friends, delegates from Pennsylvania, doubtless supposed that they would continue to be sup- ported in the views they maintained by the Assembly, as the delegates from the other Colonies were by their own legislatures. But during the month those Colonies which had not been hitherto favorable to independence hesitated to consent to it. During the severe trial of the long debate in Congress on this vital question, it is worthy of remark that Dickinson, whose views in regard to the inopportune time which had been chosen for a final separation were well known, should have been re- garded by his fellow-members with undiminished trust and confidence. Special pains seem to have been taken to meet his objections, which were chiefly twofold, —
CONGRESS TRUSTS DICKINSON.
the want of unity among the Colonies, and the want of foreign allies.
On the 1 2th of June, Congress adopted the fol- lowing resolution: "Resolved, That the committee ap- pointed to prepare a form of confederation consist of one member from each Colony." The draft of the original form of the confederation is preserved in Mr. Dickinson's handwriting, he being the member of the committee from Pennsylvania. On the same day Con- gress adopted another resolution: "Resolved, That a committee be appointed to prepare a plan of treaties to be proposed to foreign powers." Mr. Dickinson, who had been from the beginning a member of the Secret Committee for foreign affairs, was also a mem- ber of this committee, and reported the draft of a treaty. Every effort seems to have been made in Congress during this month, as we have said, to con- ciliate Mr. Dickinson, and his treatment was in striking contrast with that which he met with from the revolu- tionary faction in his own Province ; there the constant object was to crush him, not that he had given any offence personally, but because he stood in the way of the accomplishment of the designs of his political opponents. During the month the different Colonies which had decided to oppose a declaration of inde- pendence at that time determined to follow the lead of Virginia. In some of the Colonies the instructions forbidding their delegates had been rescinded, so that by the close of June New York alone stood out against it. The truth is, the conviction was growing stronger and stronger every hour that it was hopeless to expect a redress of grievances at the hands of the English
HE ABANDONS CONCILIATION.
ministry. This conviction was confirmed by the con- temptuous indifference with which the last petition to the king had been received, and by the employment of foreign mercenaries in the armies sent against us. Acts such as these convinced those who had doubted longest. It was plain that resistance could best be made to aggressions carried on in this spirit by our becoming an independent nation. Certainly, in July, 1776, no man who for more than a year had maintained our rights with arms in his hands, as Dickinson had done, was likely to be deterred from using those arms any longer through any sentimental loyalty to the king or because independence had become our aim. It was simply with him, as with a multitude of others, a ques- tion of expediency, as he himself said afterwards: "After the rejection of the last petition to the king, not a syl- lable, to my recollection, was ever uttered in favor of a reconciliation with Great Britain." Had the time come for the final separation ? On this point very sincere patriots differed. Dickinson was perhaps an over- cautious man, — certainly he was not one of a sanguine temperament, — and his experience of a want of unity during the months he had passed in Congress, the spectacle constantly before him of the delegates from one half of the Colonies wrangling with those from the other half and disagreeing almost to the last moment on fundamental points, — all this was not likely to en- courage the hope that a serviceable confederation could be formed, or that helpful foreign alliances could be contracted, and that our powers of resistance would be thereby made adequate for the purpose.
The speech which Mr. Dickinson is said to have made
\
DICKINSON'S SPEECH. 193
in Congress in explanation of his position rests on somewhat doubtful authority, like that of John Adams on the same occasion. Both speeches appeared for the first time in Botta's " History of the Revolution," where it was thought proper to make the chiefs talk after the fashion of Livy's heroes ; but there were no reporters in Congress, and neither Dickinson nor Adams recog- nized these speeches as their own. On the contrary, John Adams, in a letter to Governor McKean, of July 30, 1815, says, "Mr. Dickinson printed a speech which he said he made in Congress against the Declaration of Independence, but it appears to me very different from that which you and I heard. Dr. Witherspoon did the same, but these, I believe, are the only speeches which were committed to writing." No doubt the printed speeches express generally the sentiments of those to whom they are attributed, but in that form they must not be taken au pied de la lettre* Mr. Dick- inson is said to have begun his speech by complaining of the tumultuous proceedings in the Congress, de- signed to coerce the opinion of the members and to drive them precipitately to the most serious and im- portant decisions. He spoke earnestly of the dangers which he clearly foresaw of dissension among ourselves unless some strong central authority were created to enforce obedience, and of the fears which he enter- tained lest, the object of the war being changed, the
1 The speech attributed to Mr. Dickinson by Mr. Bancroft on this occasion is made up of extracts from his "Vindication," printed seven years later, in 1783. (See Appendix.) So far as can be ascer- tained, Mr. Dickinson printed no speech as having been made at this time.
13
194 THE SAME CONTINUED.
union of the people would be destroyed. He insisted that our history proved that it was the restraining power of the king alone which had protected the Colonies from disunion and civil war. He went so far as to say that we would find the evils resulting from such an independence intolerable. His argument seemed mainly directed to the want of a central authority, the inconvenience of which had been impressed upon him by experience. The necessity of providing for such an authority made him in after-life urge a closer union than the loose-jointed confederation by which we were then governed, as well as a strong advocate of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. He did not conceal his opinions of the arbitrary acts of the ministry during the last twelve years, but, as he evi- dently despaired of our military success in a contest with Great Britain, he thought it wiser to trust for a change for the better to anything rather than to our power of accomplishing our purpose by force. He is reported to have said that England having found re- pose only in monarchy, it would be more prudent for us to be governed by her example. It is to be observed that he positively denied afterwards ever having advo- cated any such doctrine. He seemed to think that one campaign would settle the controversy, so far as it could be settled by arms, and that it would be better to test our strength before we had gone too far to retrace our steps. He then dwelt, as he had always done, upon the two essential conditions, not only of successful resist- ance, but of any permanent independency, —first, union among ourselves, by means of a confederacy with ample power to enforce its laws, and, secondly, a foreign alliance
HIS VIEWS AS REPORTED BY HIMSELF. *95
which should make up for our military deficiencies. What Mr. Dickinson really said in the debate on the Declaration of Independence, or, rather, what opinions he entertained upon the most important points involved in that debate, we are fortunate enough to know from a letter of his addressed to Mrs. Mercy Warren (a relative of the hero of Bunker Hill), who had written a history of the Revolution and submitted the book to his criticism. The following is the answer to her letter :
John Dickinson to Mercy Warren.
MY HIGHLY ESTEEMED FRIEND, — Though increasing infirmities permit me to discharge but very imperfectly the offices of civility, yet I have attended to thy late request, and turned to the ninth chapter of the History.
As well as I can rely on my fading memory, R. H. Lee and John Adams were the principal speakers in favor of a declaration of inde- pendence. As for myself and those who acted with me, we certainly entertained, and expressed, apprehensions of great calamities to both countries should that measure be adopted, but the expression of these apprehensions was always accompanied by a solemn declaration that, dreadful as they (those calamities) might be, they were to be firmly encountered, whatever the consequences might be.1
In the tendency of our councils towards a separation, two points appeared to me important : first, to obtain as much time as possible for recovering the ministers of Great Britain from the madness under which they were laboring ; secondly, to ascertain the disposition of France, with which we were then negotiating.
As to the first point, an effort was made by bringing forward the
1 There was no question concerning forms of government, no inquiry whether a republic or a limited monarchy was best ; for if Britain persevered in her folly, we knew that the people of this coun- try must unite themselves under some form of government, and that this could be no other than the republican form ; in that case all objections against this form must vanish before the immediate neces- sity of self-defence.
J96 REFUSES TO VOTE FOR THE DECLARATION.
second petition to the king ; and in doing this it was expressly stated that if this address should not produce the desired effect, the rejec- tion of it would assuredly produce another of vast moment, — that is, an union of all those who now differed in sentiments on this subject. It did so : the rejection was complete. After the rejection, not a syl- lable, to my recollection, was ever uttered in favor of a reconciliation with Great Britain.
As to the second point, the ascertaining the disposition of France, it was perfectly well known how much she had been weakened and discouraged by the events of the war that ended in 1 763. It was not likely that she could be in a state of preparation for yielding us early and effectual assistance. Our precipitation might be displeasing to her, if we took this step without her knowledge when we were treat- ing with her for aid, especially as the establishing a great republic in the neighborhood of French and Spanish territories might be re- garded as a procedure as dangerous as
However, the infatuation of Great Britain facilitated all the enter- prises of her enemies. She has persevered in her folly ever since, and the best rule now to judge what she will do is to consider what her true interests are ; for it may be depended on that she will act directly against them.
With every respectful consideration, I am thy friend,
JOHN DICKINSON.
WILMINGTON, the Qth of the gth month, 1807.
When the final vote was taken, Mr. Dickinson, with a consistency of conduct which was the surest test of his sincerity, and with a noble disinterestedness in which he was, unfortunately, not imitated by some of his colleagues, refused to give his vote in favor of that measure. Whatever else may be said of his connec- tion with that act, there are few who will not agree with Hildreth, the historian, in thinking that it was the " noblest proof of moral courage ever shown by a public man in the history of the country." As far as could then be seen, he had made himself by it an
HIS MORAL COURAGE. 197
outcast from public life, and he sank at once from the position of leader, which he had held for twelve years, to that of a martyr to his opinions. It is easy for us now to see that Dickinson made many mistakes, and that he was too distrustful of the people of the Col- onies, and perhaps of that Providence that guided their steps ; but we must remember that a lack of confidence or of enterprise does not imply a lack of self-denying patriotism.1 Robert Morris followed the example of Dickinson by absenting himself when the vote was taken, but he afterwards signed the Declara- tion, notwithstanding the opinion he expressed in a letter to General Reed of the 2Oth of July, " that in his poor opinion it was an improper time, and that it [the Declaration] will neither promote the interest nor redound to the honor of America, for it has caused division when we wanted union," etc. James Wilson, who had been as strong an opponent of the measure during the debate as Dickinson himself, recorded his vote in its favor ; Dr. Franklin and the Speaker of the Assembly, John Morton, united with him, while Willing and Humphreys voted against it. Biddle and Allen, the remaining delegates, who were both opposed to it, had resigned their seats in Congress some time before. Such is the true story of the attitude of Pennsyl- vania and of her great leader, John Dickinson, at this important crisis of our national history. We are now so far from this event, and we have proved so com-
1 Many of the delegates from the other Colonies were personally opposed to a Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July. Among others were Jay, Duane, Robert Livingston, Read, and Rutledge.
198 DICKINSON CONSISTENT IN HIS VIEWS.
pletely in this State our loyalty ever since to the gov- ernment which was based upon our independence, under very severe trials at various times, that we can well afford to do justice to the motives of those who thought the Declaration at the time inopportune. One thing is very clear, from the review of the history of the time, that there were other forms of patriotic devotion during the war besides working for the final separation of the Colonies from Great Britain, and that the epithets which have been applied to our Pennsyl- vania statesmen, and to those who upheld the Penn- sylvania policy, of " tame," " spiritless," and " apa- thetic," are singularly out of place. We trust that 7we may recall with just pride the historical truth that the first resistance in this country to the pretensions of the ministry to tax us in all cases whatever, made upon legal and constitutional grounds, was organized in 1768 by John Dickinson in the "Farmer's Letters;" that his opinions were recognized as the wisest and most expedient which had been advocated ; that his advice was taken by all parties up to the time of the meeting of the Continental Congress in 1774, even by Samuel Adams and his friends, who from the beginning had favored independence ; that Dickinson was the /leading spirit in the Congress from that time until / June, 1776, having been selected during that period to prepare all the important public manifestoes made by that body ; and that he never wavered in his opin- / ion as to the soundness of the principles by which he was guided, — to wit, that resistance should be made to the measures of the ministry with arms in our hands until our grievances were redressed. In the beginning
CREDIT DUE TO ALL PARTIES.
of 1776, certain of the New England delegates, for reasons no doubt perfectly satisfactory to themselves and their constituents, changed their views and became more aggressive by asserting the necessity of a speedy declaration of independence. Dickinson remained un- moved in his opinion as to the best course which should be pursued up to the middle of June, 1776, and the vote of six Colonies supported him.
But it is quite unnecessary to maintain that any party or set of men should be entitled to the monopoly of whatever credit may be due to the work of our fathers. Many of those who did not agree with Dickinson in the measures he advocated were sanguine in their hopes, absolutely certain that the end which they proposed to themselves could be reached, very impatient with those who did not agree with them, and very unscrupulous in the means they took to accomplish their ends. Much the same may be said of their political friends, the party in Pennsylvania who strove to manipulate the expression of public sentiment in such a way as to make it appear that she demanded an immediate act of independence. This party tried to move its own legal Assembly, as we have seen, by threats and persuasions alternately, and finally assumed a thoroughly revolutionary attitude by trying to supersede its authority by a popular conven- tion ; and all this was done by men who claimed to be and were good patriots (but not better than their more conservative brethren), although they maintained that persons styling themselves conferees, the creatures of county committees and mass-meetings in the State- House yard, could, without authority, guarantee, or responsibility, claim to express the true voice of law-
200 PARTIES BECOME CONCILIATED.
abiding Pennsylvania. It is curious, however, to ob- serve how the enmity which had existed in the Con- gress between extreme partisans of opposite views seemed to wear away in the course of time. Dick- inson and Wilson and Morris were all ostracized for a short period, owing to the unpopularity of their opin- ions with those who had succeeded to power in Penn- sylvania, but when permitted to return to Congress they were among the most useful and faithful members of that body, and among the most active and influential afterwards in the Convention which framed the Consti- tution of the United States.1
1 In 1783 Mr. Dickinson published a statement of his services during the Revolution, from which many of the facts presented in the text have been quoted. This statement, entitled a " Vindication," is reprinted in Appendix V.
CHAPTER VI.
MR. DICKINSON'S CAREER AFTER THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
THE public life of Mr. Dickinson was eclipsed, but not extinguished, by the attitude he assumed in regard to the Declaration of Independence. He was certainly unpopular for the time with those who had usurped power in Pennsylvania* but the soldiers he commanded seem to have had at this time undiminished confidence in him. Within a week after the Declaration was adopted, news reached Philadelphia of the concentra- tion of the British army, under Sir William Howe, on Staten Island. The army was accompanied by Lord Howe, the commander of the fleet, the brother of the general, who came as a commissioner to make propo- sals of peace under certain conditions. It was thought proper by Congress, however, in order to be ready to meet any emergency, to send a large force to the neigh- borhood of New York, either to defend that city or to oppose the advance of the enemy across New Jersey, as might be required. The five battalions of the Phila- delphia Associators, forming a brigade, under Colonel Dickinson, were ordered to march forthwith towards New York. Dickinson's conduct on this occasion is beyond all praise. His duty as a soldier, he felt, was totally distinct from that as a legislator. Not a trace of irritability or of dissatisfaction with the treatment he
201
202 DICKINSON'S SERVICE AS A SOLDIER.
had received, which would have been so natural under the circumstances, appeared in his conduct. He sacri- ficed not only his opinions but his pride to the true instinct of patriotism, and he proved as loyal to his country in the field as if he had been defending there a cause which had been all his life dear to him. He felt keenly his position, but he was all the more anx- ious to do his duty, for the sentiment of devotion to his country seemed to absorb his whole life. The follow- ing extracts from letters written by him when we may suppose that he felt most keenly the unworthy treat- ment he had received are very characteristic :
John Dickinson to Charles Thomson.
ELIZABETH-TOWN, August 7, 1776.
. . . You may recollect circumstances that are convincing that my resignation was voluntary, I might have said ardent. Whether I shall ever put on the cumbersome robes (of public life) I know not and care not. However, for your Horatian hint of rebus in arduis, I will pay you with two of equal merit :
" Hie murus aheneus. ******
" Justum ac tenacem propositi virum Non civium ardor prava jubentium, Non vox instantis tyranni."
I wrote about a week ago to Mr. Hancock, desiring Congress to open my English letters and send them to me.
Same to Same.
ELIZABETH-TOWN, August 10, 1776.
The enemy are moving, and an attack on New York is quickly expected. As for myself, I can form no idea of a more noble fate than, after being the constant advocate for and promoter
IN ANTICIPATION OF BATTLE. 203
of every measure that could possibly lead to peace or prevent her return from being barred up ; after cheerfully and deliberately sacri- ficing my popularity and all the emoluments I might certainly have derived from it to principle ; after suffering all the indignities that my countrymen now bearing rule are inclined, if they could, so plenti- fully to shower down upon my innocent head, — than willingly to resign my life, if Divine Providence shall please so to dispose of me, for the defence and happiness of those unkind countrymen whom I cannot forbear to esteem as fellow-citizens amidst their fury against me. Much rather would I wish that these severe masters would give me up to my dear connections. My books and my fields are inter- course and employment for which my constitution is better formed than for the toils of war, to cultivate which my temper is more dis- posed than to aspire to all the united glories, could I attain them, of every heroic death from the Roman Curtius to the British Wolfe.
Same to Mrs. Mary Norris.
. . . This moment Genl. Mercer has left my table. . . . Just as we were setting down to dinner he received an express from Genl. Washington, informing him that the enemy was making such move- ments that the attack on New York is expected every hour. . . . The enemy is about twenty or twenty-five thousand strong. Our troops intended for that service are passing with the utmost expedition to New York. Genl. Mercer is gone this afternoon to Newark to for- ward them. The fate of America will be decided in a few weeks or days. Genl. Washington has invited our militia to reinforce them. The duty is so evident, the occasion so vast, that I spoke to my battalion and offered to lead them to New York in defence of our country, our wives, children, and friends. I have not yet re- ceived their answer. . . . Whatever it may be, I feel a conscious satisfaction in having done what I OUGHT to have done, AND NO MORE. . . .
Be pleased to give my tenderest love to Cousins Debby, Isaac, Jose, and Charley. They must love my baby most dearly, and I hope she will deserve their sincerest affection.
I am, my dearest aunt, your affectionate and dutiful nephew,
JOHN DICKINSON.
ELIZABETH-TOWN, August i4th, 1776.
204 CONCEPTIONS OF A SOLDIER'S DUTY.
Mr. Dickinson's belief in the claim of the country to the services of all her sons when in danger is the true explanation of his conduct at this crisis. He wrote after the war, when reviewing the part he had taken in the struggle, "Although I spoke my sentiments freely, — as an honest man ought to do, — yet when a determination was reached upon the question against my opinion, I regarded that determination as the voice of my country. That voice proclaimed her destiny, in which I was resolved by every impulse of my soul to share, and to stand or fall with her in that scheme of freedom which she had chosen." It is not to be for- gotten, as a commentary on these views, that Colonel Dickinson and Colonel McKean, each commanding a regiment and holding at that time opposite political views, were the only members of Congress who took up arms in its defence. With the same patriotic fervor is filled the speech delivered by Mr. Dickinson in Con- gress in 1779 : uTwo rules I have laid down for myself throughout this contest, to which I have constantly ad- hered, and still design to adhere : first, on all occasions where I am called upon, as a trustee for my countrymen, to deliberate on questions important to their happiness, disdaining all personal advantages to be derived from a suppression of my real sentiments, and defying all dangers to be risked by a declaration of them, openly to avow them ; and, secondly, after thus discharging this duty, whenever the public resolutions are taken, to regard them, though opposite to my opinion, as sacred, because they lead to public measures in which the Com- monwealth must be interested, and to join in support- ing them as earnestly as if my voice had been given
COMPLAINTS OF INGRATITUDE. 205
for them. If the present day is too warm for me to be calmly judged, I can credit my country for justice some years hence."
Dickinson seems to have been illy repaid for his magnanimous course. It will be remembered that in the preceding month of May the Assembly had been informed by a message from some of the private sol- diers of the battalions of the Associators that they would not submit to the orders of the general officers who might be appointed by that body to command them. The object of this dangerous movement on the part of the Whigs was to place the military force of the Prov- ince beyond the control of the Assembly. The Assem- bly seems to have made no attempt to disregard the order of this military mob, and, there being no general officers when the Associators were called into service, Dickinson, as the senior colonel, took the command. An election was held, however, by the soldiers, without any legal warrant, for two brigadier-generals in the mean time, but it was not confirmed by the Convention until the 28th of September. General Roberdeau, a violent Whig, but an excellent man, was chosen to supersede Dickinson. Meantime, however, Dickinson was under the command of General Hugh Mercer, a veteran officer highly thought of by Washington, who was afterwards killed at the battle of Princeton.
But the cup of indignity and humiliation forced upon him by his enemies in Pennsylvania had not yet been wholly drained. The Convention which had been chosen to frame a new Constitution met on the 2Oth of July ; the first of all its revolutionary acts — and all its acts of ordinary legislation were revolutionary — was to elect
206 NQT RE-ELECTED AS A DELEGATE.
a new set of delegates to Congress to replace those whose term had not expired, but who had offended the violent Whig partisans by refusing to vote for the Declaration. Mr. Dickinson was not re-elected, and the result seems to have made him, as it would appear to us, more angry than the occasion required. " I had not been ten days in camp at Elizabethtown," he said, many years after, " when I was by my persecutors turned out of Congress. While I was exposing my person to every hazard, and lodging every night within half a mile of the enemy, the members of the Conven- tion at Philadelphia, resting in quiet and safety, igno- miniously voted me, as unworthy of my seat, out of the National Senate." When the election of General Roberdeau was confirmed by the Convention on the 28th of September, Dickinson resigned his commission, on the double ground that the Convention, as an illegal body, had no right whatever to appoint military officers, and also because the design clearly was to insult him, although he had been faithfully performing his duties. His battalion, however, had by this time been much weakened by desertions, and that portion of it that was left was directed by General Mercer to join the " flying camp" after the battle of Long Island.
The first Assembly under the new Constitution met early in November. Mr. Dickinson, who had been chosen as a member from the county of Philadelphia, was firmly convinced, with many of his friends of all parties, that the Convention was an illegal and revolu- tionary body : illegal in its origin because in no proper way did it represent the people of the State, and revo- lutionary in its action not merely because it presumed
ANARCHY UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. 2°7
to form a State Constitution, but because it exercised all the powers of legislation, of which its election of delegates to the Congress and the appointment of mil- itary officers are examples. What the public sentiment was regarding the Convention and the Assembly sitting under its authority is well told by James Allen in his Diary.1 Mr. Allen had been elected in May, 1776, by the county of Northampton a member of the legal As- sembly by a vote of eight hundred and fifty-three to fourteen. This was one of the counties which a few weeks afterwards was said to have sent delegates to the Convention to frame the constitution of a new govern- ment, while Mr. Allen and his supporters were strong supporters of the old charter.2 Mr. Allen says in his Diary, " Instead of immediately framing a new govern- ment, the Convention, unwilling to part with its power, continued to exercise all power till the voice of the
1 Pennsylvania Magazine of History, vol. ix. p. 188.
2 This James Allen belonged to perhaps the most conspicuous fam- ily in Pennsylvania just previous to the Revolution. It was a family of great wealth and of the highest social and political position. It was composed of the Chief Justice and his four sons. All of them were stanch defenders of the rights of the Province (most of them with arms in their hands) up to the Declaration of Independence, when they all became, or rather all continued to be, loyalists. Their course was in striking contrast with that of Mr. Dickinson. The per- sonal popularity of Mr. James Allen, and the attachment of his con- stituents to the old order, are very significant. It would appear that some of the representatives under the new system in Pennsylvania were chosen very much as was Mr. Simon Boerum to represent one of the counties of Long Island in the Continental Congress, the meeting at which he was elected having consisted of two persons, one of whom became the chairman, and the other the delegate to represent the county.
208 DOINGS OF THE ASSEMBLY.
people — that is, the Whiggist part — obliged them to frame a government and dissolve themselves, having made it a necessary qualification for electors and elected to swear to preserve their frame. This split the Whigs to pieces, the majority disliking the frame, and therefore not voting for the new Assembly, which was of course chosen by very few. In some of the counties the oath was dispensed with. The papers now teemed with strictures on the frame of government. The Assem- bly was chosen and sat ; the minority, who disliked the frame, threatened to leave the rest if they proceeded to business, which would have left less than a quorum, till the Congress, when the enemy were expected in Philadelphia in December, sent them word that if they did not agree to act as an Assembly they would take the government of Pennsylvania into their own hands." This humiliating condition of affairs here was the legit- imate outgrowth of the revolutionary Convention, and of the manner in which it had been brought together.
At this crisis, Dickinson, as always in difficult times, strove to bring order out of the chaos in which the rev- olutionists had involved the State. On the first day of the meeting of the Assembly he proposed the following plan to extricate it from its embarrassment. " On be- half of myself and of others, my constituents," he said, "I agree that we will consent to the choice of a Speaker, sit with the other members, and pass such acts as the public affairs may require : provided that the other mem- bers, the majority, will agree to call a free Convention for a full and fair representation of the freemen of Pennsylvania, to meet on or before the day of Jan- uary next, for the purpose of revising the Constitution
DICKINSON RETIRES FROM PUBLIC LIFE. 209
framed by the late Convention, and making such altera- tions and amendments therein as shall by them be thought proper, and making such ordinances as the circumstances of affairs may render necessary : pro- vided that no part of said Constitution be carried into execution by this Assembly, and provided that this Assembly be dissolved before the meeting of the Convention."
This proposition was not accepted by the Assembly, and Mr. Dickinson, disdaining to sit and legislate in a body so illegally constituted, retired from it. He left it, as he says, with a firm resolution on three points : i st, that he would never again hold any office, civil or military, under such men ; 2d, that he would retire to another State, where his services might be better ap- preciated ; and, 3d, that he would volunteer as a private soldier on the next call for the militia.
Mr. Dickinson's determination to retire from public life at this time was unyielding. His " wounded spirit," tortured by the distrust in his course shown by his ene- mies and by what he considered the want of a proper measure of support by his friends, so disgusted him with the public service that he did not feel called upon to remain longer in a position in which he felt that he was looked upon by many as having outlived his use- fulness. He had many warm and devoted friends still, and they tried to convince him that he had been made morbidly sensitive by the treatment which he had re- ceived. In November he was elected by Delaware one of her delegates in Congress, but he declined absolutely the honor, without assigning any reason for his refusal. Perhaps the state of his mind at this time is best por-
14
210 HfS FRIENDS URGE HIM TO RETURN.
trayed in the two letters which we annex, from his friends Charles Thomson and Dr. Rush. It will be observed that they both remonstrate with him upon his retirement as a serious loss to the great cause in which they were all engaged.
Charles Thomson to John Dickinson.
SUMMERVILLE, Aug. l6, 1776.
DEAR SIR, — . . . You and I have differed in sentiment with re- gard to the propriety of certain public measures, — not so much about the measures themselves as the time, which you thought was not yet come. But from the prejudices that I find prevail, and the notions of honor, rank, and other courtly ideas so eagerly embraced, I am fully persuaded, had time been given for them to strike deep or root, it would have been extremely difficult to have prepared men's minds for the good seed of liberty.
I know the rectitude of your heart and the honesty and upright- ness of your intentions, but still I cannot help regretting that, by a perseverance which you were fully convinced was fruitless, you have thrown the affairs of this State into the hands of men totally unequal to them. I fondly hope and trust, however, that Divine Providence, which has hitherto so signally appeared in favor of our cause, will preserve you from danger and restore you, not to " your books and fields," but to your country, to correct the errors which, I fear, those ''now bearing rule" will inflict through the form of government.
There are some expressions in your letter which I am sorry for, because they seem to flow from a wounded spirit. Consider, I beseech you, and do justice to your "unkind countrymen." They did not desert you. You left them. Possibly they were wrong in quickening their march and advancing to the goal with such rapid speed. They thought they were right, and the only "fury" they showed against you was to choose other leaders to conduct them. I wish they had chosen better : that you could have led them or they waited a little for you. But sure I am, when their fervor is abated, they will do justice to your merit, and I hope soon to see you restored to the confidence and honors of your country.
I am glad to hear you continue hearty.
DR. RUSH'S LETTER. 211
We have flattering accounts from Canada by some Canadian officers who have joined our army. I hope they will prove true.
Order and harmony are returning to our northern army, and if it please Providence to dispel the dark cloud that hovers over New York, I fondly hope the sun of peace will quickly shine upon us. May that gracious Providence in which I know you place your confi- dence protect and preserve you. . . .
Adieu. I am your sincere and affectionate friend,
CHAS. THOMSON. Dr. Rush to John Dickinson.
MY DEAR SIR, — While I disapprove most heartily of the coalition of parties in the Assembly, I cannot help lamenting that you have left the House upon the account of it. The members from West- moreland and Bedford will turn the scale in our favor as soon as they come to town, and we shall have a convention and a consistent legis- lature in spite of all their cunning and malice. For the present it becomes us to unite heart and hand in repelling the common enemy. The eyes of the whole city are fixed upon you. We expect, we are sure, you will head your battalion. All our hopes of your future usefulness in our State depend upon it. Mr. Howe cannot mean to winter in Philadelphia, unless he is invited here by the slender oppo- sition Gen. Washington now makes against him. A body of ten thousand militia will certainly terrify him into winter quarters. The safety of the continent depends upon the part Pennsylvania will take upon this occasion. The whole State of Pennsylvania will be influ- enced by the city of Philadelphia, and the city waits only to see what part you will take upon the occasion. Excuse the liberty I have taken of suggesting these hints, and believe me to be, with the most sincere regard, your most affectionate humble servant,
BENJ. RUSH. PHILADA., Dec. ist, 1776.
JOHN DICKINSON, ESQ., at Fairhill.
On the nth of December, upon the rumor that the British army was approaching Philadelphia, he removed with his family to his farm near Dover, in Delaware. There he had abundant opportunity during the next
212 fffS LIFE IN DELAWARE.
two years to ponder upon the mutability of human affairs and the ingratitude of mankind. He did not again return to Pennsylvania until the people of that State, tired of the unsuccessful attempts of their rulers to bring the Constitution of 1776 into satisfactory work- ing order, called him again to her councils in 1782. His family seems to have returned to Philadelphia. In Oc- tober, 1777, he writes the following letter to his wife on the occupation of the city by the British army :
"October 3oth, 1777.
" MY DEAR WIFE, — Mr. Mifflin has been so kind as to undertake to come from Philadelphia with you and our dear child. I heartily rejoice in such an opportunity. Come immediately. Don't trouble yourself with bringing any of my clothes ; but request our kind aunt that they may be safely put up. I should like to have the day-book brought, if not inconvenient. The carriage is at Bringhurst's ; the harness James has. Mr. Mifflin engages to provide some way of get- ting you out of town. I wish you to lodge the first night at the Hum- phreys's ; the next you may get to some friend's at Wilmington. I entreat that you will not cross the Ferry of Christeen. I also ear- nestly desire that you will not pass any ferry or bridge in the car- riage ; I beg earnestly that you and our precious one may get out at such places. Please to bring the bark in gross, and put up the pow- dered bark in some dry and safe bureau or drawer. I dread your coming in a two-wheeled carriage. If any of your friends supply you with horses they shall be well taken care of."
He passed his time in the society of his " fields and books," which he so dearly loved, seeking therein that repose for body and spirit which, after the excessive labors of the two preceding years, he so sorely needed. His health had never been robust, and doubtless the hope of its restoration induced him to decline the elec- tion by his ever-faithful friends in Delaware, on the 5th
AGAIN ENTERS THE ARMY. 213
of November, 1776, to the post of delegate to Congress from that State.
It certainly is one of the curiosities of political expe- rience that at the very time that he was driven from public life in Pennsylvania by the violence of the party opposed to him he should have been besought by men apparently of the same national party in Delaware to accept office at their hands. To an active spirit such as that of Dickinson, residence in Delaware without any official relations to the public, although he was constantly surrounded by kind and considerate friends, must have seemed almost like exile. Doubtless he watched with the deepest anxiety the movements of the British army at that critical period : its object had evidently been from the beginning the occupation of Philadelphia. Sir William Howe, having been foiled in his attempt to approach the city from the north by the victories of Washington at Trenton and Prince- ton during the winter of 1776-77, decided, during the summer of 1777, to advance on it from the south. For that purpose, his army was sent by way of Chesa- peake Bay to the head-waters of the river Elk. Wash- ington moved southward from Philadelphia to repel this advancing force, and in September, 1777, the battle of the Brandywine was fought. Meanwhile, the State of Delaware was exposed to the incursions of the enemy on both sides, and Caesar Rodney, the president of the State, was called upon by Washington to raise a force sufficient at least to harass the invaders, and, if possible, to cut off the retreat of the army to their ships at the head of Elk in case of their defeat. President Rodney gathered together the militia of
214 AT THE BATTLE OF THE BRANDYWINE.
Kent County, which was in the rear of the invading army, for that purpose. Of the men and the officers composing this force we know little, save that John Dickinson is represented to have served with it as a private soldier in the company of Captain Stephen Lewis, and that he was present with it at the battle of the Brandywine.1 We may be sure, however, that whatever he did in the military service at that time he did well ; for on the 24th of September, less than two weeks after the battle of the Brandywine, he was ap- pointed by his old political opponent, Thomas McKean, who was then acting president of Delaware in place of John McKinley, who had been made a prisoner of war, and Caesar Rodney (the vice-president), who was then engaged in military duty, a brigadier-general of the militia of that State, an office which, however, he held for a few months only. Nothing, it may be said, is more interesting in the whole career of Dickinson than these instances which are constantly brought before us of what has been sometimes rather inappropriately called his " magnetic power." Not only does he seem to have had many warm friends, and of course, like all men of strong character, many bitter enemies, but he had also the power of attaching to himself in a very re- markable degree many of those from whom he differed very widely in political opinion. His earnest sincerity, his transparent integrity of motive, the amiability of his manners, and the unmistakable kindness of his heart were such conspicuous traits of his character that they disarmed such opponents as the warm-hearted and im-
1 I make this statement on the authority of the late William D. Lewis, Esq., who, if I mistake not, was a son of Captain Lewis.
MCKEAN AND DICKINSON. 215
petuous McKean and took away from their enmity all its sting. This appointment of Dickinson to such a post as that of brigadier-general by a man like McKean, who had known all about him from his earliest manhood, and who recognized at once, if any one ever did in those gloomy days, the true ring of patriotism when he heard it, is highly creditable to both. We may add that it is one of the strongest indications we have of the high reputation of Dickinson at that time as a sincere lover of his country, especially as it comes from the leader of that party in Pennsylvania which had driven Dick- inson into exile.
But the true sphere for the activity of such a man as Dickinson at this crisis, as all his friends felt, was the national Congress; His experience in that body was invaluable. He had been superseded, as we have seen, as a delegate from Pennsylvania by the Convention of that State on the 2Oth of July, 1776, but he was returned with great unanimity by Delaware as a member of that body on the 1 7th of November in the same year. He was prevented, however, by causes which we can only conjecture, from taking his seat at that time. On the i8th of January, 1779, he was sent again by Delaware as a delegate to Congress. On his return to that body he found that the condition of the country and the rela- tions of Congress towards it had been much changed in the interval. In July, 1776, the prospect of success- ful resistance had appeared to the majority of Congress bright and hopeful. A measure had just been adopted which it was supposed would add much to the force of the country, by making the struggle one for main- taining its independence rather than for securing a re-
216 CHANGES IN CONGRESS.
dress of grievances. The members of that body were then, without doubt, the foremost characters of the country, most truly representing the different shades of opinion in its different sections, and all were ready to yield their own private convictions for the advance- ment of the common cause. At that time, too, the suc- cess of our arms at Lexington and Bunker Hill and the evacuation of Boston had inspired every one with the hope of a speedy and successful termination of the war. Money for its successful prosecution seemed abundant, each Colony vying with its neighbors in sending men, fully organized and equipped, at its own expense towards New York, the point then threatened with invasion. But, alas! in 1779 these bright and hopeful days had long since gone by, and a gloom black as Erebus had settled down upon the hearts of the patriots, eclipsing, if not extinguishing, all their joyful anticipations. The defeat on Long Island, the advance of the British army across New Jersey, the subsequent occupation of Philadelphia, although the dark picture was somewhat relieved by the brilliant affairs at Tren- ton and Princeton and by the surrender of Burgoyne's army, showed unmistakably that, as in all wars, so espe- cially in this, if success was in the end to be reached, the path which led to it was beset by many obstacles which, except to the eye of faith, appeared insurmount- able. The consequence was that in the year 1779 to many there appeared no prospect of raising more men and more money, and that meant, of course, that the end was near. The Continental paper money had by that time become almost valueless, and the supply of men for recruiting the army seemed exhausted. It
DICKINSON RETURNS TO CONGRESS. 217
was the period of the war when men of stout hearts and iron wills were most needed ; when men like Morris and Rush and McKean strove to revive and uphold the drooping spirits of their countrymen by earnest appeals to their patriotism. These men turned to the counsel and example of John Dickinson to guide them in the difficult path upon which the Revolution had entered. He was welcomed back to Congress most warmly by those who looked to him for aid and support in the arduous work which they had undertaken.1
Amidst all the gloom by which the country was sur- rounded at the time of Dickinson's return to Congress there was one bright spot, and that was the alliance with France, concluded in 1778 ; yet such were the gen- eral despondency and impatience that many could not
1 Mr. Jay, then president of Congress, wrote him the following letter of congratulation on his election. It will soon be seen how much Mr. Dickinson's advice was needed in the very important affairs then before Congress :
John Jay to the Honorable John Dickinson, Esq.
PHILADELPHIA, March 22d, 1779.
DEAR SIR, — Your election to a seat in Congress is an event for many reasons pleasing to me. I have for some time past flattered myself with soon having the pleasure of again seeing you in a place which you formerly filled with advantage to your country and repu- tation to yourself.
Permit me to hint that your State is unrepresented, and that were you apprised of the very important affairs now under consideration, you would think with me that your attendance ought not to be longer delayed.
I am, dear sir, with great respect,
Your most obedient and h'ble servant,
JOHN JAY. THE HON'BLE JOHN DICKINSON, ESQ.
THE FRENCH ALLIANCE.
see its vital importance in bringing about the result ; and to others, with their English traditions, nothing seemed so unnatural as an alliance with a power both French and Catholic, with which we had always been contend- ing upon this continent, and the manners and religion of whose people our fathers had always been taught to hold in abhorrence. The truth is that in the war of the Revolution, as in all wars waged for the maintenance of a principle, our countrymen were to learn that what was needed as the true characteristic of the popular judgment of a war which had been entered upon with an unreasoning enthusiasm ought to be not so much " hopefulness or impatience of immediate results as a stern endurance, — that king-quality of heroic constancy, which, rooted deep in a profound conviction of the jus- tice of the cause, supports a lofty public spirit equally well in the midst of temporary disaster and in the hour of assured triumph."
When Dickinson took his seat in Congress in the spring of 1779, ne f°und not only a wonderful change in the condition of the country, but also that many of the ablest men whom he had left there in 1776 had left their seats. Not only were the times more difficult, but the men who were to confront the danger were far less capable in every way than their predecessors. From Virginia alone, Mason, Wythe, Jefferson, Nicholas, and Pendleton were gone ; John Adams and Franklin were Commissioners abroad, and Jay was soon to become one. No means had been taken to restore the cur- rency, ruined by an unrestricted emission of paper money, except frantic and senseless appeals to the States to enforce the circulation of worthless paper as
DEPRESSED CONDITION OF AFFAIRS. 219
money. There was no national money in any true sense, because Congress had no power of taxation, and the States refused or neglected to pay the quotas for which they had been assessed for the public service. There were no more men forthcoming to fill up the de- pleted ranks of the army, because each State retained in its own service the men it saw proper to enlist, so that at that time there were thirteen petty armies, and no Continental army which could be relied upon for effective service, because its numbers could not be kept up. Men who were most familiar with the con- dition of public affairs were sunk in despondency ; and even the serene Washington himself did not hesitate to say in his private correspondence that in his opinion " America was on the brink of destruction, and that her common interests, if a remedy were not soon to be ap- plied, would moulder and sink into irretrievable ruin." All this was clear before men's eyes, but to those who had the responsibility of governing at this critical time there were dangers impending, arising from a well- founded distrust of the French alliance, from which even our success in the war would not screen us.
Such was, in brief, the situation when Mr. Dickinson returned to Congress. He took his seat on the 23d of May ; he bore with him the ratification of the Articles of Confederation by the State of Delaware, which had been made on the 3d of the preceding February. As Congress was then in a condition in which good news and favors, however small, were thankfully received, no doubt this act of the representative of Delaware helped to make him in that Congress persona grata: at any rate, Congress was not long in turning to him for advice.
220 DICKINSON'S ADDRESS TO THE STATES.
He was appointed chairman of a committee to prepare an address to the States on the perilous condition of the finances. On the 26th of May this address was presented, and adopted by Congress. It was hoped that, all other expedients having been exhausted, the voice of one to whom they had been accustomed to listen would be heeded. This was the fifth and last of those memorable State papers issued by Congress and prepared by Mr. Dickinson, and it is interesting to us principally from the enumeration which it gives of the embarrassments and difficulties by which Congress was surrounded. If it did not rouse the people of the dif- ferent States to action or force them to change their policy, it had upon them an indirect effect not without its value. It drew the attention of the people to the defects of the central government under which they were living, and showed them in a forcible way how utterly unfitted it was for the functions which a govern- ment is called upon to exercise in time of war ; and hence it tended, with other things, to impress upon them the absolute need of a better plan to accomplish its ends. Thus, out of the countless embarrassments which surrounded Congress in the prosecution of its special work arose an intense conviction of the neces- sity of a more perfect union. Rhetoric and argument might in themselves be of little avail, but they at least quickened the apprehension of those who were search- ing heaven and earth to find new force and greater strength.
In February, 1779, Spain offered her friendly medi- ation to Congress, with the view of securing peace. This was probably the " very important affair" referred
PROPOSED ALLIANCE WITH SPAIN. 221
to in Mr. Jay's letter to Mr. Dickinson, and the many questions involved in the proposal demanded the ability and experience of the best men in Congress for its safe settlement. We had long sought for the alliance of Spain, and hoped that through the influence of our ally, France, she would give us more active aid and sym- pathy than she had hitherto done. She now offered her services in the neutral office of mediator. But her situation was peculiar. Not only did she look with an apprehension not unnatural upon all colonial revolts, but she also feared England, and she hoped to gain for herself as the price of her mediation certain advantages of a territorial kind which she could not have ventured to ask for as our ally. She wished to be confirmed in the exclusive possession of the Valley of the Mississippi and to retain Florida, so as to maintain her influence in the Gulf of Mexico, and these advantages she hoped to gain at a general peace. The French were tired of the alliance, as it entailed an enormous drain on their treasury, and they were anxious to be confirmed in their claims to the fisheries on the coast of Newfoundland, which they hoped also to secure at a general peace ; and hence all the influence of the Bourbon family com- pact was brought to bear, so that Spain, if she could not be induced to be our ally, might gain her ends as well as those of France by acting as a mediator.
It was thought wise, at the instance of Gerard, the French minister, to listen, at least, to these proposals of Spain. The terms which we would agree upon as the price of peace, especially our position in regard to the fisheries and the Mississippi, were warmly discussed in Congress for many days. The Southern members,
222 DICKINSON'S DRAFT OF INSTRUCTIONS.
whose territory was overrun by the enemy, favored peace, and insisted that the dispute about the fisheries was too small a matter to prove an obstacle to attain- ing it, while the New England men regarded the con- trol of the navigation of the Mississippi as hardly worth contending for. The result was, as appears from the secret journals of Congress, that instructions were at last agreed upon by which Mr. Adams, Dr. Franklin, and Mr. Jay, our Commissioners respectively in Eng- land, France, and Spain, were to be guided in the negotiation. In these instructions, prepared by Mr. Gouverneur Morris and Mr. Dickinson, the terms on which we were willing to accept mediation and con- clude peace are distinctly stated. This negotiation, as is well known, came to nothing. The most interesting thing about it at this time is the tone which our fathers, and Mr. Dickinson as representing them, maintained in regard to concluding peace in that darkest hour of the war. We have the draft of the instructions to Mr. Adams, our Commissioner in England, prepared by Mr. Dickinson, which was substantially approved by Congress. In regard to the recognition of our inde- pendence,— the form as well as the substance, — and our claims to the fisheries and the boundaries, it took the same ground which was successfully taken by our negotiators in 1783 at the Treaty of Paris.1
Mr. Dickinson resigned his seat in Congress in the autumn of 1779, and returned to his farm in Delaware. In 1781 he was elected a member of the Supreme Ex- ecutive Council of that State, and shortly afterwards (unanimously) its president. Both of these offices 1 See Appendix VI.
HE RETURNS TO PHILADELPHIA. 223
were literally forced upon him ; he was obliged to serve in spite of his protestations and refusals, because in those times of trial he seems to have been regarded not only as the most brilliant of all the galaxy of brilliant men in public life, but also as the most trusted, by men of all parties of that little State.
In 1782, Mr. Dickinson determined to return from Delaware to Philadelphia. The anti-Constitutionalists there, who by that time had gained a majority in the Assembly, and who earnestly desired to retain their ascendency and to keep their opponents, whom they still regarded as revolutionists of a very bad type, out of office, struggled hard to secure a majority in the Council and thus choose a president of their own party. They were much aided by the anarchical condition of the State government at that time. Never, indeed, in its history had the affairs of Pennsylvania been brought to such desperate straits as during the administration of President Reed, which was now closing. This was certainly not entirely due to defects either in the policy or in the methods which the president had employed, but in a great degree was the result of evils which were inherent in the condition of affairs at that time, and which grew necessarily out of a state of war. The era of the Declaration was called by Paine the "times that try men's souls;" these may be styled the "times which try men's tempers and capacities." The diffi- culty was substantially a financial one. The regiments for which the State was responsible were ill fed, ill clothed, and unpaid during the last two years of the war, and were at length driven by their sufferings into mutiny, and all this was mainly due to the worthless-
224 ANARCHY IN PENNSYLVANIA.
ness of the currency in which they were paid, consisting of State obligations becoming more and more depre- ciated as increasing amounts were issued. There was a false theory of the currency prevalent at that time which pervaded the minds of vast numbers of the people, and faith in this theory was the true source of all our woes. It was generally believed that the people could be forced to take anything as money at its nominal value, provided that the penalties for refusing to take it were made sufficiently severe and constantly enforced. The persistent attempt to carry out such a system during the administration of Presi- dent Reed (who, to do him justice, was under no delu- sion as to the true cause of the trouble) led to a state of confusion unparalleled in the annals of the conti- nent. Embargoes, legal-tender laws, — even martial law, — were tried as remedies, but they could not stay the rapid decline in value of the paper-money currency. Wedded to a false theory, those who suffered turned with violence not only against their rulers, whom they regarded as the authors of their misfortunes, but also and especially against those who were supposed to have made their fortunes at the price of the public distress, and in many cases these were pointed out as fit objects of popular vengeance. The refusal to receive paper money in payment of debts contracted when hard money was current was looked upon as a species of petit treason; while he who would not sell his goods, to be paid for in such worthless paper, was spoken of as an ill-disguised enemy of the Revolution. This short method of confiscating the property of the creditor class of the community not only changed the status of
REVOLTS, CIVIL AND MILITARY. 225
very many of those who were utterly helpless to resist, but also destroyed those endowments of charitable institutions, which by the wish of the donors had been invested in mortgages, the debtors taking advantage of the depreciated currency, especially in the case of the College of Philadelphia, to cancel their obligations. Many looked upon their distress as the result of a cunningly-devised scheme on the part of the Tories to disgust and weary the patriots with the war. They could not understand how there should be such a paralysis of the functions of industrial life, while the harvests of Pennsylvania continued abundant and when Lord Cornwallis's army had surrendered.
To the public and private distress, caused by the scarcity of food and by the nominally high price it commanded, were to be attributed the disorders and disturbances of the public peace which marked the administration of President Reed. The revolt against the so-called monopolizers of goods, — commonly called the "Fort Wilson Riot," — the proclamation of martial law, the perpetual embarrassments which attended the recruiting of the army, and the meeting of the Penn- sylvania line in 1781 at Princeton, where the soldiers positively refused to serve any longer a State which had so often deluded them by false promises, — these troubles, combined with the high price of all the neces- saries of life, forced upon many men the belief that a hope of remedy lay only in the revision of the Consti- tution of 1776. To its numerous patent defects, and not to the violation of natural laws, many were disposed to ascribe the evils from which they suffered. Parties were formed in the State called the Constitutional and
15
226 PROPOSED REVISION OF CONSTITUTION.
the Republican, the latter urging a revision of the Con- stitution as the panacea for all ills. In November, 1778, the Assembly, tired out apparently with the dispute, and unable to suggest any other remedy for pressing evils, had agreed upon a plan for revision ; but in the suc- ceeding February, from motives which it is not now easy to explain, they reversed their vote almost unanimously. Probably it may have been felt that it was as dangerous to change the organic law at that time as it had been in 1776; and no further effort was made by the legis- lature to revise the Constitution until long after the war had terminated. Practical unanimity on this point, however, did not calm the violence of party spirit : each was most bitter in its denunciations of the other, al- though neither had any scheme to propose which would now be recognized as effective to cure the evil from which all were suffering. Those who told the truth, and who found the cause of the trouble in the measures which the masses of the populace on both sides advo- cated, were the enlightened men of both parties, who were not listened to by those who controlled the votes. Such is a sketch of the demoralized condition of the State when President Reed gave up his office. He had tried in vain to make his fellow-citizens understand that revolutions cannot be long kept up upon an over- strained credit. The main question before the new administration was how to extricate the State from the " slough of despond" into which this popular faith in paper money had plunged it. Mr. Dickinson had been elected in 1782 a member of the Council from the County of Philadelphia, and in November he was chosen by the legislature president of the Council by a vote
DICKINSON CHOSEN PRESIDENT. 227
of forty-one to thirty-two given to General Potter, a distinguished Revolutionary officer.1
1 His return to Philadelphia, and his election, first as a member of the Council, and afterwards as its president, seem to have been the occasion of much rejoicing among his friends. The following letters bear strong testimony to his popularity at the time :
Dr. Rush to John Dickinson.
MY DEAR FRIEND, — I expected from your note that you would have left town yesterday. The day is at last come that will give free- dom and happiness to Pennsylvania. The country will vote nearly as one man in your favor. Take care of your health in your excur- sion to Delaware. The wishes, the hopes, the affections of every good man in our State now centre in you. Yours — yours — yours,
BENJ. RUSH.
Tuesday morning, Octob. loth, 1782.
From the Officers of the Continental Army.
To his Excellency John Dickinson, Esquire, President of the Su- preme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, <5rv. &c.
We, the subscribers, officers of the troops of Pennsylvania in the Continental army, beg leave to present our congratulations on your appointment to the high office you now fill.
Deeply interested as we are in the happiness and prosperity of our common country, to procure which we have given our united exer- tions under very great difficulties, we consider your appointment as the returning dawn of that temper and good sense which long dis- tinguished Pennsylvania, and augur to ourselves and the community great advantages from a person of such known abilities and integrity, and who has had so distinguished a part in bringing about the present revolution, being placed at the head of the government.
That your administration may be attended with lasting blessings to the people over whom you preside, which can alone render it satisfac- tory to your enlarged mind, is the sincere wish of,
Sir, Y'r Excell'y's very h'mble serv'ts,
OFFICERS OF THE CONTINENTAL ARMY.
October, 1782.
228 POWER OF THE PRESIDENT.
Mr. Dickinson was, of course, an anti-Constitution- alist, or Republican, as the party in favor of revision was then called, and he was at the outset supported by a majority of the members both of the Council and of the Assembly. His administration opened with a favor- able omen, — the sudden and total discredit of the paper money of the State and the restoration of the currency to the specie basis. " It was effected," says President Reed, in a letter to Mr. Searle written in the spring of 1781, " really and truly by the people themselves gradu- ally depreciating the money until the exchange rose to two hundred and fifty and three hundred for one (hard, or in specie). Ostensibly, it. was occasioned by a decree of the Supreme Executive Council that it should be received in payments at the rate of one hundred and seventy-five to one. At once, as if by that force which in days of ignorance would be ascribed to enchantment, all dealings in paper ceased ; necessity forced out gold and silver, a fortunate trade opened at the same time to the Havannah for flour, all restrictions were taken off, and the Mexican dollars flowed in by thousands/'
The president of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania was a man of more limited power in or- dinary times than his successors, the governors of that State. He was chosen by the Council, whose members were elected from certain districts of the State, and he exercised the executive power jointly with this body. The legislative power was vested absolutely in one body, in accordance with a favorite theory of Dr. Franklin, which, by the way, he strove hard to intro- duce into the Constitution of the United States. There was another part of the government machinery, a body
MEN OF ABILITY SELECTED. 229
of men called the Council of Censors, whose business it was to meet every seven years and to examine whether during that period the laws had been duly enforced. The president held his office for one year, but it was customary, when his administration had been satisfactory to his party, to re-elect him until he had served three years, after which he was ineligible. Thus Mr. Reed, Mr. Dickinson, and Dr. Franklin each held the office for three years. In ordinary times the posi- tion was not one of any great or controlling influence, but in war time, when the State authorities were neces- sarily in constant correspondence, and expected to be in constant co-operation, with the Federal government in regard to the raising of men for recruiting the army and of money for the needs of the government, the office, in the midst of unparalleled public distress and embar- rassment, was one which required men of extraordinary capacity and energy to fill it with any degree of success. In 1780, as we have seen, it had been necessary to pro- claim martial law, — that is, the suspension of all law save the will of the president and Council, — in order to preserve the State from falling into absolute anarchy. Although the war was drawing to a close when Mr. Dickinson entered upon his office, and he was spared the constant struggle which his predecessor had under- gone in his efforts to find money in an empty treasury and soldiers in an exhausted and demoralized populace, still he met with embarrassments and difficulties pecu- liar to the time, which it required the most enlarged capacity and statesmanlike ability to surmount.
The people of Pennsylvania of all parties, with an instinctive sense that the Constitution of 1776 was, at
23° DICKINSON ATTACKED BY VALERIUS.
its best, only an untried experiment in government, adopted, as we have said, out of deference to the great name of Franklin, had placed at the head of the gov- ernment those whom they believed to be the ablest and most experienced public men in the State, and from them something worthy of their great reputation was naturally expected. This may in a certain degree ex- plain the fact that no three governors of Pennsylvania since the Constitution of 1776 was abolished can com- pare, in intelligence, patriotic service, and general states- manlike ability, with Reed, Dickinson, and Franklin, however great the shortcomings of some of them may have been. It is not to be forgotten that Dickinson had been a strong opponent of the Constitution of 1776, or, rather, of the manner in which it had been set in operation, and that he had gone so far, in Novem- ber of that year, as to decline acting as a member of the legislature elected under its supposed authority. But he had been convinced by the events of the past six years that the majority of the people of the State were at least content to live under it quietly until more pro- pitious times should come for revising it. In the mean time he took sincerely the oath to support it while he exercised the powers it conferred upon him as the chief of the Executive Council.
Mr. Dickinson was not permitted to assume office until after he had been exposed to a most violent and scurrilous attack in the newspapers by an anonymous writer who signed himself Valerius. The attack began by a letter in the Freeman's Journal of the 3Oth Octo- ber, 1782, and was followed up, after Mr. Dickinson's election as president, by several other letters from the
VIGOR OF THE ASSAULT. 231
same source, in which the bitterness and malignity of the writer were more conspicuous, if possible, than in the first. Mr. Dickinson, with that dignity of charac- ter which he maintained in all his political controver- sies, and with that consciousness of rectitude of inten- tion which seems to have sustained him in all his trials, took no notice of this perfidious assault upon his acts and motives until after his election. He was, doubtless, unwilling that he should owe his office to any personal denial of the charges which were made against him. He neither said nor wrote anything in the way of ex- planation until it was ascertained that these calumnies had had no influence upon his friends, who, for their sake, not his, were urging his election. So far as can be known, the stories of Valerius concerning Dickin- son's want of patriotism, his unscrupulous ambition, his cowardice, and his desertion of duty in the hour of danger, did not take from him a single supporter. He waited quietly until confidence in his personal character had secured his election, and when the bitterness of his adversary had exhausted itself, so far as it could ex- haust itself in the newspapers, he published his vindi- cation, which, to any man who has studied his career and watched carefully the steps of his progress, seems complete and satisfactory. Who Valerius was has never been distinctly known, and his identity has been, per- haps, as difficult to fix certainly as that of the author of the letters of Junius. Like the attacks of that famous libeller, the letters of Valerius are more remarkable for boldness of invective and unscrupulous ascription of bad motives than for any influence or impression which they made upon the public mind at the period when
232 POLITICAL LIBELS THEN COMMON.
they were written. As these letters are the source from which posterity has drawn the materials for the libels which have done so much to misjudge and injure, in the eyes of posterity, the man who had the moral courage to refuse to vote for the Declaration of Inde- pendence because he thought it inopportune, it will be necessary hereafter to refer to the explanation which Mr. Dickinson thought proper to give of the circum- stances upon which they were founded. Meantime, the fact that they were believed at the time by all his friends to be false and malicious, and that Mr. Dickinson, after having served one year as president, was unanimously re-elected to that office on two successive occasions, would seem to show that the impression made by them was not very permanent.1
Perhaps this is the place where we may best consider the vast part played by anonymous libels upon promi- nent men during the Revolution, and, indeed, during the remaining years of the eighteenth century. They were all liable to assaults of these nameless calumni- ators. It will be remembered that General Washington himself, when the Conway Cabal was about maturing its treasonable designs, received from Governor Henry of Virginia an anonymous letter which had been sent him, and which afterwards was proved to have been written by one of the most eminent men in the country, sug- gesting that the General-in-Chief was unfit for his place, and urging the necessity of replacing him. It was the day of coarse abuse and cowardly attack : all that the libeller needed was a ready pen and the ca- pacity to write pure, nervous, direct Saxon English, like 1 See Appendices V. and VII.
VIRULENCE OF THE NEWSPAPERS. 233
Paine and Cobbett, and his writings might convey the vilest insinuations against men whom he dared not attack except with visor down. Nothing was so com- mon at that time as to impute wrong and unpatriotic motives to one's opponents, as, indeed, has always been a favorite device in times of revolution. The private character of men in official station was as open to assault as their public acts. Let a man be a ready writer, and, although his words, read by his contempo- raries, would be looked upon with an incredulous smile by those who had occasion to know their falsity, yet these words remain in history, with the venom they contain preserved in the vehicle which has brought them down to us, without the antidote which rendered them harm- less when they first appeared. The wonder is, not that Dickinson was attacked by Valerius, but that, promi- nent as he was, and peculiar as was his position, he was not made more frequently the target for anony- mous libellers. When Washington himself was called by a writer on Jay's treaty, among other hard names, "a fool by nature, exhibiting all the ostentation of an Eastern bashaw ;" when we recall the libels of Thomas Paine and Peter Porcupine; when Dr. Rush asserted that some people were advised not to take his remedies for yellow fever because he had signed the Declaration of Independence, — others might complain, but they could not wonder if they received similar treatment. This virulent abuse of men whom we now regard truly as the best of their time was then the disgraceful charac- teristic of the newspapers on both sides. Such assaults now seem the most senseless of clamors. When we read these libels now, in the hope of finding in them
234 MORE BITTER COMMONLY THAN NOW.
the grain of truth which some of them contain amidst a bushel of chaff, our curiosity is often repelled by the vileness of the story through which we have to wade to accomplish our purpose.
No one, too, can read these libels without being convinced of the falseness of the opinion which holds that our forefathers, in their political controversies, were more decent, truth-loving, and respectful in their man- ners towards their opponents, and less given to im- puting bad motives to their political adversaries, than the men of our own time. Many of the subjects which led to the acrimonious disputes of the last century were lacking in those features of importance which would justify such coarseness, to say nothing of the mode of showing it, among public men at the present day. To speak now only of questions the discussion of which was conducted with the greatest heat after the Revolu- tion was closed, it is not, perhaps, to be wondered at that men became excited over the interpretation of the Constitution or the wisdom of Jay's treaty and other measures of equal importance ; but who would not be tempted now to smile, could he forget how many true hearts were wounded, by assertions, confidently made, that a large portion of the best men in the country were monarchists because they were Federalists, or that the Democrats were Jacobins and infidels because they looked with sympathy upon the French Revolution ; that the funding of the public debt was proposed as a means of establishing an aristocracy ; that General Washington's levees, and his delivering his speech in person instead of sending a message to Congress, were designed to familiarize the people with monarchical
ABSURDITY OF THE CHARGES. 235
forms ; that the Constitution of the United States was designed for a monarchy that was to be established ; that the Society of the Cincinnati was either the out- growth or the parent of a conspiracy to establish a monarchical government, with all its forms, here? Yet these chimerical — we are almost tempted to call them silly — disputes, which we have so happily out- grown, formed in the days of our forefathers the great topics of political controversy. From the wretched im- putations which these political discussions occasioned, few men in public life at that time, no matter how exalted their station or how devoted their services to the country, wholly escaped. Such methods of political warfare we should scorn to engage in now, low as the ethical tone is; nor would public sentiment, degenerate as we are said to be as compared with our fathers, suffer it to be done.
Scurrilous political libels, or, rather, libels for political purposes, had become so common during a considerable portion of Dickinson's career that they naturally did not produce an effect commensurate with the efforts which were made to inflict upon him their venomous sting. In Mr. Dickinson's case, partly from the bitter malignity of the attack, partly from the extraordinary vigor with which the letters of Valerius were written, partly from the gross injustice which every one of ordinary intelli- gence must have seen was done to the motives of all Mr. Dickinson's acts, and partly, and, we may hope, principally, from the complete vindication of his politi- cal conduct which Mr. Dickinson saw proper to pub- lish, these productions of Valerius have outlived the ob- livion which has completely covered the countless other
236 CHARGES MADE BY VALERIUS.
political libels of which that age was so prolific. The principal interest now attaching to the letters of Valerius and the vindication of Mr. Dickinson which they called forth is the picture which they furnish us of Mr. Dick- inson's career during the Revolutionary era as viewed by his political adversaries. In this respect they are important contributions to the history of the times.
The charges against Dickinson by Valerius are grouped, in his " Vindication," under four heads: i, his general opposition to the independence of the coun- try ; 2, his desertion of the battalion of militia under his command in December, 1776, when an attack on Philadelphia was expected ; 3, his persistent opposition to the State Constitution of 1776; 4, the advice given by him to his brother not to receive Continental paper money in payment of debts due him. A few sentences from the first letter of Valerius will give an idea of his style and animus :
" His worst enemies cannot deny that he has a mind well improved by education, reading, a good profes- sional knowledge of the law, a slow but elegant pen, and the manners of a gentleman. He possesses a boundless ambition, savoring too much of personal gratification, no small degree of dissimulation, passions naturally strong and under unequal command. He was the early and persevering enemy of the independence of America. He has neither the firmness nor the de- cision of mind for trying occasions, and after sounding the trumpet to others and engaging himself in civil and military offices he shrank from his duty and aban- doned the cause at a time when his distressed country required his services the most. This example was most
IMPUTATION OF COWARDICE. ^37
dangerous. In his despondency he endeavored to cut asunder the great sinew of our defence, the Continental money, and upon discovery he retired in disgrace and despair to a corner of the State he lately governed. He remained there in obscurity until the ebb of adver- sity was spent and the tide of American fortune de- cisively turned by the capture of Burgoyne and the French alliance," etc.
Valerius quotes many passages from the speeches and writings of Mr. Dickinson in order to show the cautious and conservative position maintained by him from the beginning of the controversy. He professes to be un- able to understand what was certainly clear to every one else, — that a man who could hesitate so long to break off all connection with Great Britain could be willing at any time or under any possible provocation to do so. This peculiar line of attack against Mr. Dick- inson's political course we have had occasion to criticise, and, whatever may be said of its wisdom as a method of gaining popularity, there can be no doubt of its en- tire consistency. The main difference between him and those who advocated independence in 1776 was simply this : that he had more faith in the sincerity and intelli- gence of the British government, and was more con- vinced of the value of the English connection to this country, than his opponents. But the sting of the attack of Valerius was not so much in the charges of unpatriotic conduct themselves, which every one in Mr. Dickinson's own home, at least, knew to be not only false but ridiculous, as in the tone of personal insult he assumed in belittling the motives of his conduct, and especially in attributing that conduct to a timid, vacil-
238 NATURE OF DICKINSON'S COURAGE.
lating, and cowardly spirit. It is from the brilliant and reckless invective of Valerius, as we have said, that pos- terity has derived its impressions of Dickinson, and it is very clear that when Mr. Bancroft and others wished to attack the Pennsylvania Farmer, they found in these shameless libels the arsenal from which their weapons were drawn. The charge of a want of personal cour- age is to a man of Mr. Dickinson's instincts and asso- ciations the grossest form of personal insult. It is a charge easily made, and it is seldom that in such cases any eye short of that of omniscience sees clearly, be- cause the medium is clouded. As far as we can judge, Dickinson certainly manifested during his career the highest form of courage of which a man in public life is capable, — that of fearlessly maintaining his opinions in the face of popular clamor. As we have already said, his acts in the crisis of the Revolution, however unwise they may have been, have been properly re- garded by one distinguished historian as exhibiting a greater degree of moral courage than that of any other of the great actors in those days of trial. Unless we are to believe that there is no courage in opposing the fury of the mob in times of great excitement, — and this has often proved the highest form of courage, — we cannot believe the innuendoes of Valerius nor the absurd charges of timidity and vacillation which have been founded upon them in our own times.
There were certain peculiarities of Mr. Dickinson's character and position which gave to his political oppo- nents, who spoke even of General Washington as a "misplaced Fabius," an opportunity of charging him with a want of aggressiveness and self-assertion, these
IN WHAT WAY A MAN OF PEACE. 239
being the qualities which, to their minds, constituted the truly brave man.
Mr. Dickinson by birth and descent was a Quaker, and although he was early forced to adopt the opinion that defensive war, at least, was permissible, he advo- cated and engaged in it as if he were performing a solemn duty from which there was no escape. He had nothing of the swaggering military adventurer or hero about him. He was, in the finest and best sense, a man of peace, never invading the rights of others, and never suffering his own to be trodden upon, yet firmly believing, and acting all the time upon the belief, that " the pen was mightier than the sword." Wherever we meet him, from his earliest manhood, we find him always mild and amiable, disposed to be conciliatory, free from anything that looks like a quarrelsome disposition. He was beloved even by many of his political opponents, — men such as McKean and Rush, — and he was always ready to exert himself in behalf of those who sought his aid and influence. No one ever doubted his posi- tion or was misled as to his opinions. He was perfectly frank and sincere, even when the avowal of his views might have involved him in great personal danger ; and it is to the possession of these qualities of openness and sincerity, as much as to his unquestioned ability, that he owed many of the public positions which he filled. The record of his whole life shows that, in the opinion of his contemporaries, — friends as well as political enemies, — the peculiar qualities ascribed to him by Valerius are precisely those which were most conspicuous by their absence.
It is not necessary to repeat here what will be found
240 SUMMARY OF HIS DEFENCE.
fully stated in the Vindication by way of refutation of these calumnious charges. As to the extraordinary statement that Colonel Dickinson abandoned his bat- talion in the hour of danger, it is only necessary to remember that he was practically superseded in its command by the election, on the 4th of July, 1776, of General Roberdeau as brigadier-general by the sol- diers, which election was confirmed by the Convention in September. As Colonel Dickinson was then in the midst of a campaign, and commanded not only his own regiment, but, as senior colonel, the brigade of Phila- delphia troops, to the satisfaction of General Mercer, he regarded the appointment of General Roberdeau and his confirmation by the Convention as what it was no doubt intended to be, — a method of getting rid of him. As soon as he heard of the action of the government de facto (that of the Convention), he felt called upon, by every consideration founded upon military honor and usage, to resign his commission. Besides, it must be said that the spirit of disaffection prevailed among his troops. His soldiers were patriotic " home guards," rather than soldiers moulded into trustworthiness and effectiveness by long military discipline. Many de- serted ; and the truth is that his battalion abandoned him, and not he the battalion. At last General Mercer, who, like all veterans, believed that there could be no efficiency without strict discipline, in disgust disbanded them, ordering those who still remained to repair to the " flying camp."1
1 The following is a copy of Mr. Dickinson's commission as colonel. It will be observed that it is issued by the Assembly, and that he is to be responsible to the Assembly and the Committee of Safety only :
HIS RESPONSIBILITY TO THE ASSEMBLY. 241
His hostility to the Constitution of 1776 was due rather to the mode by which it had been imposed upon the people of the State. In this respect his position was exactly similar to that of some of the best men in the State, many of whom bitterly regretted that they had approved the call for the Convention. They were numerous enough to form a majority of the Council and the Assembly when he took office under it, and he thought, very properly, that a submission to six years' government under it condoned, for practical purposes, the vices of its origin. As to the accusation that he
"Pennsylvania, ss.
[L. s.] "!N ASSEMBLY.
"May 23rd, 1775.
" To John Dickinson, JE squire.
"We, reposing especial trust and confidence in your patriotism, valor, conduct, and fidelity, do, by these presents, constitute and appoint you to be Colonel of the First Battalion of Associators in the City and Liberties of Philadelphia, for the protection of this Province against all hostile enterprises, and for the defence of Amer- ican liberty. You are therefore carefully and diligently to discharge the duty of a colonel, as aforesaid, by doing and performing all man- ner of things thereunto belonging. And we do strictly charge and require all officers and soldiers under your command to be obedient to your orders as their colonel. And you are to observe and follow such orders and directions, from time to time, as you shall receive from the Assembly during their sessions ; and, in their recess, from the present or any future Committee of Safety appointed by the Assembly of this Province, or from your superior officer, accord- ing to the rules and regulations for the better government of the Military Association in Pennsylvania, and pursuant to the trust re- posed in you. This commission to continue in force until revoked by the Assembly or by the present or any succeeding Committee of Safety.
" Signed by order of the Assembly.
" JOHN MORTON, Speaker." 16
242 CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN 1782.
had advised his brother privately that he should not receive paper money in payment of mortgages to secure debts contracted in specie, that was certainly regarded by the popular tyranny of the time as a transaction little short of treasonable, or, as it was called by Valerius, " endeavoring to cut asunder the great sinew of our defence, the Continental money." This charge, as we have explained, grew out of the false sentiment pre- vailing at the time, which, while it did not forbid a man from thinking that silver and paper had at that time a different value, prohibited him from telling even his own brother that such were his opinions. It is certainly not worth while to waste time in showing that the enforce- ment of such a policy was as absurd as it was tyrannical, and that it is only another illustration of the attempt of the ostrich to conceal its body by burying its head in the sand, a species of folly of which the history of great outbursts of popular passion during revolutions affords many examples.
No more critical period of our State history is to be found, it has been said, than the interval between the signing of the preliminaries of peace, in 1782, and the adoption of the Federal Constitution. Every interest, social and political, was at that time marked by disorgan- ization and change, and it seems hard to understand how a new form of society was built up from the very foundation in the exhausted condition into which we had sunk at the close of the war. There seemed to be no vigorous life left to enable us to grapple with a mutinous army, with a worthless currency, and with a discontented people, who had by this time lost their illusions and were clamorous for aid in many ways
MISGOVERNMENT OF THE STATE. 243
which no human government could give them. Noth- ing could be expected from the measures of the State legislature, which during the previous administration had been ruled by incapable demagogues. It is true that an act for abolishing slavery in Pennsylvania had been passed, to which, however, there seems to have been no opposition ; but for other internal affairs no better expedients could be found than embargoes, legal tender laws, and maximum of prices fixed by law, en- forced at last by martial law. All this revolutionary legislation was crowned by the famous act of spoliation by which the revenues of the College of Philadelphia were taken from it by the legislature under false pre- tences and transferred to a new educational establish- ment, in direct violation of the guarantees of the Con- stitution of the State. Whatever, then, was the public distress, it was in vain to look to the legislature for hopeful measures of relief. Gradually, as the currency — as we have explained — grew sounder, there was an improvement, and business slowly revived ; but the liquidation of the claims of the soldiers, and finding for them employment in the new conditions in which they would be placed when disbanded in 1 783, caused almost as much anxiety as was felt during the war, when it was necessary to equip, maintain, and pay them for active service. The discontent was well-nigh universal, and, in the case of the soldiers at least, not unnatural. That they should be disbanded without the payment of their just claims, after all they had undergone, was an act of flagrant wrong, and it is not to be wondered at that some of those quartered nearest to the place where Congress was sitting were determined to extort the
244 REVOLT OF TROOPS AT LANCASTER.
money due them by force, if their claims were still unheeded.
In the month of June, 1783, some fifty of the dis^ banded soldiers of the Pennsylvania Line in the Conti- nental army at Lancaster, finding it impossible to get the pay due them, determined to march to Philadelphia, with the intention of stating their grievance to Con- gress in session there and urging payment of their claims. On reaching the city they were joined by a considerable number of their comrades who had suf- fered the same injustice and who determined to unite with them in seeking a remedy. The mutinous soldiers, under the charge of certain sergeants, presented them- selves drawn up in the street before the State House, where Congress was assembled. They made no at- tempt to enter the building or to insult any member of Congress. The Executive Council of the State, sitting under the same roof, was called upon by Congress to interpose its authority and disperse the soldiers. Pres- ident Dickinson came in and explained to the members of Congress the difficulty, under the circumstances, of calling out the militia of the State to suppress what was spoken of as the mutiny. He had called together General St. Clair and the field officers of the Philadel- phia militia, and they agreed that unless there was imminent danger of some outrage on persons and property their men could not be relied upon. Although no attempt was made to compel Congress by force to grant the demands of the soldiers, yet its members became very much alarmed, and adjourned to meet at Princeton, alleging that they could not deliberate in safety in Philadelphia. The soldiers then, becoming
MARCH TO PHILADELPHIA. 245
incensed by this method of evading their just demands, threatened to attack the bank where the public money was supposed to be deposited. As this offence seemed to the President and his Council a much more serious one than the insults that were alleged to have been offered to the members of Congress by urging them to pay what was due the soldiers, a force sufficiently large to guard the bank and preserve the peace was soon formed from volunteers. In a few days all danger from the military riot (falsely so called, because the men concerned in it were under no control or military discipline, but were simply discharged soldiers) was over, the leaders, fearing punishment, having deserted their followers and escaped.
The following explanation of this riot and of the measures taken to quell it was sent by Mr. Dickinson to Congress :
" To the President of Congress.
" PHILADELPHIA, June 25, 9 o'clock.
« gIR) — The Minister of France, who has been a witness of the last transactions of this day, has obligingly offered to convey to Congress my account of their happy conclusion. He is now wait- ing to receive it in my house ; and that circumstance, with the great fatigues I have lately undergone, having been up all the last night, will, I hope, apologize to Congress for this short and imperfect de- spatch.
" This day, about twelve o'clock, the Council received from the committee of officers appointed by the soldiers in the barracks their requests, attended with a petition of pardon from Council for their misbehavior.
"As their proposals contained no submission to Congress, Council unanimously informed those of the committee who attended that we should not take their proposals into consideration unless they should first make a full and satisfactory submission to Congress, and
246 -DICKJNSON'S ACCOUNT OF THE XEVOLT.
we directed the attending members of their committee to communi- cate this unalterable resolution of Council to them.
" This was immediately done, and at the same moment orders were issued by Council for a guard of five hundred men to be immediately assembled, and for the militia of the city and neighborhood to hold themselves in readiness for action on the shortest notice, having re- ceived intelligence that an attack upon us was intended this afternoon.
(l The negotiation for the desired submission was continued, and, with the prudent and highly commendable management of Colonel Hampton, so well conducted that six of the leading sergeants among the soldiers first attended me, submitted, and impeached two officers, —a Mr. Carberry, deranged, and a Mr. Sullivan. Colonel Hampton and a number of citizens then repaired to the barracks, and this afternoon just at dark all the soldiers, except some of those lately from Lancaster, appeared, without their arms, before my house.
11 1 then addressed them, reminded them of their fault, — unprece- dented and heinous, — approved the evidence given of their dutiful disposition, insisted on their instantly putting themselves under the command of their officers and yielding to them a proper obedience ; that, as a stronger proof of the disposition mentioned, they should, at the end of twenty-four hours, use their arms to reduce the soldiers who lately came from Lancaster to obedience, unless in that time they should of themselves return to obedience and put themselves on their march for that town under the command of such of their officers as should be in this city, in which service the militia should co-operate with them.
" The soldiers, being dismissed, were ordered to retire to their quar- ters in the barracks under the command of their officers, and they instantly obeyed. I am informed, by officers in whom I am per- suaded I may confide, that the mutiny is suppressed except among some of the Lancaster soldiers,
" I told the others that in consequence of their good behavior I should recommend them to Congress for pardon, and I hope that they will act in such a manner as to obtain a restoration to the favor of Congress. I shall give orders for the apprehending the two officers before mentioned.
" I am, sir, your very h'ble serv't,
"JOHN DICKINSON."
THE WYOMING TROUBLES. 247
This incident in Mr. Dickinson's administration has been referred to because it seems to illustrate very forcibly the coolness, the moderation, and the humanity which were so characteristic of the man. He said con- cerning it in a message which he sent shortly after- wards to the Assembly, " In this unhappy affair we found ourselves extremely distressed. On one side we were urged by the Representatives of the United States to draw forth and employ the citizens in imme- diate hostility against the soldiers, while on the other hand the citizens considered them as objects of com- passion rather than of terror and resentment. They could not bear to avenge the dignity of Congress, ac- cidentally and undesignedly offended, by shedding the blood of men whom they considered as having fought and suffered for the American cause."
The year 1784 is marked in the annals of Pennsyl- vania by the disgraceful and iniquitous proceedings of parties professing to act under the authority of the State in their attempt to dispossess by force the claimants of lands which were held in the Wyoming Valley under the Connecticut title. As is well known, it was long a matter of doubt and controversy whether these lands were within the jurisdiction of Penn- sylvania or of Connecticut. Under a provision of the Articles of Confederation, questions of this kind were to be submitted to a court to be constituted by Congress. Accordingly, a court acting under this authority was held at Trenton, which, after listening for forty days to arguments from the most learned counsel to be found in the country, decided that the lands in question were within the bounds of Pennsyl-
248 DICKINSON'S POSITION.
vania as set forth in the charter of Charles II. The inhabitants of this region were said to exceed six thousand in number, and they nearly all held their lands by titles derived from Connecticut. To reconcile the sovereignty of Pennsylvania in the Valley of Wyo- ming with an equitable treatment of the actual settlers, who suddenly found that they had bought a bad title and made costly improvements on the lands in good faith, was a task which required the exercise of the utmost skill, patience, comprehensiveness of view, and humane consideration on the part of the authorities of Pennsylvania. The task was all the more difficult because the Executive Department of the State could not agree upon any plan of settling the question. The President in this matter stood alone, the Supreme Executive Council, which shared his power, and the Assembly, which had all the legislative authority, being united against him. Hence his voice of remonstrance, joined to that of another governmental body, called the Council of Censors, was utterly unheeded by the agents of the Pennsylvania landholders, who set to work to drive away from this region the Connecticut settlers as intruders. The whole controversy is perhaps best explained in the report of these Censors, from which it will appear how difficult it must have been to act justly and at the same time to deal mercifully with the actual settlers :
" IN COUNCIL OF CENSORS, September n, 1784.
" It is the opinion of this Council that the decree made at Trenton, early in 1783, between the State of Connecticut and this Common- wealth, concerning the territorial right of both, was favorable to Pennsylvania. It likewise promised the happiest consequences to the confederacy, as an example was thereby set of two contending
SUPPORTED BY COUNCIL OF CENSORS. 249
sovereignties adjusting their differences in a court of justice, instead of involving themselves, and perhaps their confederates, in war and bloodshed. It is much to be regretted that this happy event was not improved on the part of this State, as it might have been ; that the persons claiming lands at and near Wyoming occupied by the emi- grants from Connecticut, now become subjects of Pennsylvania, were not left to prosecute their claims, in their proper course, without the intervention of the legislature ; that a body of troops was en- listed, after the Indian war had ceased and the civil government had been established, and stationed at Wyoming, for no other apparent purpose than that of promoting the interest of the claimants under the former grants of Pennsylvania ; that these troops were kept up and continued there without the license of Congress, in violation of the confederation ; that they were suffered, without restraint, to injure and oppress the neighboring inhabitants during the course of the last winter ; that the injuries done to these people excited the compassion and the interposition of the State of Connecticut, who thereupon demanded of Congress another hearing, in order to inves- tigate the private claims of the settlers at Wyoming, formerly inhab- itants of New England, who, from this instance of partiality in the army, might have been led to distrust the justice of the State, when, in the mean time, numbers of these soldiers and other disorderly per- sons, in a most violent and inhuman manner, expelled the New Eng- land settlers before mentioned from their habitations, and drove them towards the Delaware through unsettled and almost impassable ways, leaving these unhappy outcasts to suffer every species of distress ; that this armed force, stationed, as aforesaid, at Wyoming, as far as we can see without any public advantage in view, has cost the Com- monwealth the sum of ,£4460 and upwards for the bare levying, pro- viding, and paying them, besides other expenditures of public money ; that the authority for embodying these troops was given privately and unknown to the good people of Pennsylvania, the same being directed by a mere resolve of the late House of Assembly, brought in and read the first time on Monday, September 22, 1783, when, on motion, and by special order, the same was read a second time and adopted ; that the putting this resolve on the secret journals of the House, and concealing it from the public after the war with the savages had ceased and the inhabitants of Wyoming had submitted to the gov-
25<> COUNCIL AND ASSEMBLY OPPOSE.
ernment of the State, sufficiently marks and fixes the clandestine and partial intent of the armament, no such caution having been thought necessary in defence of the northern frontiers during the late war ; and, lastly, we regret the fatal example which this transaction has set, of private persons, at least equally able with their opponents to main- tain their own cause, procuring the influence of the Commonwealth in their behalf, and the aid of the public treasury ; the opprobrium which has from thence resulted to the State, and the dissatisfaction and prospect of dissensions now existing with one of our sister States ; the violation of the confederation, and the injury done to such of the Pennsylvania claimants to land at Wyoming, occupied as aforesaid, as have given no countenance to, but, on the contrary, have dis- avowed, these extravagant proceedings. In short, we lament that our government has in this business manifested little wisdom or fore- sight, or has not acted as the guardian of the rights of the people com- mitted to its care. Impressed with the multiplied evils which have sprung from the improvident management of this business, we hold it up to censure, to prevent, if possible, any further instances of bad government which might involve and distract our new-formed
This humane remonstrance of the Council of Cen- sors produced no effect whatever upon the Supreme Executive Council or upon the Assembly, and they both seem to have been wholly under the influence of the Pennsylvania land claimants. President Dickinson, whose humanity had been shown on a previous occa- sion by his efforts to supply the wretched inhabitants of the valley with food when they had suffered the loss of everything by an ice-flood, and whose sense of jus- tice and ideas of policy were both shocked by the vio- lence committed on these people, now interposed once more for their relief. He sent a message to the Coun- cil on the 5th of July, in which he says, " Being still indisposed and unable to attend the Council to-day, I
DICKINSON'S PROTEST. 251
think it my duty, notwithstanding what has been already offered, to request that you will be pleased to consider the propriety of calling a body of militia into active ser- vice on the intelligence so far received, in the manner proposed. If the intention is that the militia shall assist the Pennsylvania claimants in securing the corn planted on the lands from which the settlers were expelled last spring, such a procedure would drive these settlers to absolute despair. They will have no alternative but to fight for the corn or to suffer and perhaps to perish for the want of it in the coming winter. They (the settlers) will regard this step as the commencement of hostilities against them ; and perhaps others, whose statements are of vastly more importance, may be of the same opinion."
This impressive protest, like that which preceded it, produced no change in the legislation of the State or in the action of the militia who were sent to Wyoming. But the prophecies of Mr. Dickinson as to the result of this policy were all fulfilled, and there was no peace on " Susquehanna's side, fair Wyoming," until justice, as urged by him, was done to the settlers, and until the inhabitants, who had fought with desperate valor for the preservation of their homes, had the bad titles to the lands which they had bought in good faith quieted and confirmed by the irrevocable authority of the State.
The duties of the President of the Supreme Ex- ecutive Council under the Constitution of 1776 were indeed multifarious. Besides being charged with the executive business of the State, he was ex-officio Chief of the High Court of Errors and Appeals, the head of the judicial system. As such, associated with the
252 JUDGMENT IN AN ADMIRALTY CASE.
judges of the Supreme Court, he delivered in 1785, among other opinions, one in an important cause (Talbot vs. The Achilles et al., reported in i Dallas) involving questions of admiralty jurisdiction, which shows how even in this comparatively unexplored region his learning was accurate and profound. He discusses these questions of a purely technical kind with wonderful clearness and ability. He holds, first, that the owners of letters of marque are responsible for injuries committed on the high seas by the com- manders of vessels sent out by them ; secondly, that in cases of captures from enemies, persons in other vessels acquire no right merely by seeing the capture made ; thirdly, that the judge of the admiralty for this State may legally take cognizance in cases similar to this; fourthly, that the appeal in such cases to the High Court of Errors and Appeals of this State is regular.
CHAPTER VII.
HIS SERVICES IN THE CONVENTION WHICH FRAMED THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.
THE time was approaching when the abilities and ex- perience of Mr. Dickinson were again to be called into action upon a wider stage than that of a single State. The statesman, especially he who was actively engaged in public affairs, was more and more impressed by the experience of every passing day with the necessity of a revision of the Federal system. The air was fairly filled with what may be called national problems at the termination of the war, and the existing govern- ment seemed to provide no method of solving them satisfactorily. Such questions as the right of the navi- gation of the Mississippi, the disputed boundaries of the States, the best method of applying the proceeds of the sales of the public lands, the mode of raising a revenue by imposts, the conflict that existed in several of the States between the authorities and dissatisfied soldiers and creditors of every description ; in short, the inevitable embarrassments arising from a new life under new conditions, — all these difficulties might well have appalled and discouraged the ablest and most experienced statesman. No one denied that our con- dition at that time was chaotic. All admitted that the remedy lay in a more perfect union ; but under what conditions that union was to be established, and
253
254 REVISION OF THE CONSTITUTION.
especially as to how far it was to absorb the powers of the States, scarcely two persons could be found who were of the same opinion. The root of the difficulty was the jealous fear lest in any new organization the pretensions of each State to a quasi-sovereignty should be denied or ignored. In all our political history, as is well known, no doctrine has been more tenaciously held than that of State sovereignty. Even now it sur- vives in many quarters after a century's trial and a crushing condemnation by the terrible ordeal of a four years' war. But before the Constitution of the United States was adopted as an instrument deliberately framed for the purpose of extracting the poison of this doctrine from the body politic, it was natural that the States which had just emerged not only from colonial depend- ence but also from a system of centralized administrative tyranny should look with suspicion upon plans which seemed in any measure to withdraw from themselves the power of home rule. The Colonies had called themselves before the world " free and independent States," banded together only for a special purpose, — that of armed resistance. Besides, as has been already explained, a union was not thought of as the outgrowth of any national feeling, but as a matter of absolute necessity. At that time the people in the different States had different habits, ideas, and modes of living, and they had been taught that their material interests were irreconcilable. Country meant to most persons the narrow Colony in which they were born and lived ; men of action knew their own people and their needs, and to satisfy them was their highest ambition. The national government which has since arisen, and in the
CONVENTION AT ANNAPOLIS. 255
service of which men are proud to act and call them- selves Americans, was then at best a shadowy league, the result of conflicts and compromises which it was supposed would not outlive the war. But, of course, the great obstacle on the part of the States to the adoption of any federal system of real force and sta- bility was the uncertainty which prevailed concerning the nature and extent of the powers with which it was proposed to invest it.
Thus, while the country was recovering from the material losses caused by the war, it was this element of uncertainty about the future which paralyzed all at- tempts to build new hopes of prosperity upon a sure foundation. Nowhere had a statesman ever had a more difficult task than to solve the problem in which were involved so many conflicting ideas and interests. There was as yet no national statesman, in our meaning of the term. The one element of hopefulness in the situation was that, much as men differed about the remedy, all agreed that the existing condition was simply a prelude to anarchy.
At last, in January, 1786, affairs had reached such a crisis that it became imperatively necessary to deter- mine whether it was possible to form a more perfect union, and whether a permanent national sentiment was an American idea. Accordingly, on the 2ist of that month the legislature of Virginia adopted the follow- ing resolution : "Resolved, That certain Commissioners be appointed, who shall meet such Commissioners as may be appointed by the other States of the Union, at a time and place to be agreed upon, to take into con- sideration the trade of the United States, to examine
256 ITS RECOMMENDATIONS.
the relative trade and situation of said States, to con- sider how far a uniform system in their commercial regulations may be necessary to their common interest and permanent harmony, and to report to the several States such an act relative to this great object as, when unanimously ratified by them, will enable the United States in Congress assembled effectually to provide for the same." At a meeting held on the nth of Septem- ber, at Annapolis, in pursuance of this invitation, Com- missioners from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia appeared, and John Dickinson, a Commissioner from Delaware, was chosen president. It appeared that, although Commissioners were said to have been appointed by the legislatures of several of the other States, they did not attend at Annapolis. Those who did attend instructed their president, Mr. Dickinson, to make a report of their proceedings to Congress, from which the following extracts are taken : "As the powers of the Commissioners suppose a dele- gation from all the States, those who are present did not consider it proper to proceed to business under such a defective representation. They think that the idea of extending the powers of the delegates to objects beyond commerce, as has been suggested by New Jer- sey, is a good one, and that it would be better to extend it to the whole matter of Federal government. They decline to state what the defects of the existing system are, but they express their unanimous conviction that an effort should be made for the appointment of Com- missioners to meet at Philadelphia on the second Mon- day in May next, to take into consideration the situa- tion of the United States, and to devise such further
THE ACTION OF CONGRESS. 257
provisions as shall appear necessary to render the Constitution of the Federal government adequate to the exigencies of the Union.''
On the 2ist of February, 1787, this letter of Mr. Dickinson was read in Congress, and his suggestions were adopted, with the following modification proposed by Massachusetts, viz. : " That the Convention report to Congress and the State legislatures such alterations as they may deem adequate." Such is the genesis of the Convention which framed the Constitution of the United States. Mr. Dickinson took his seat in the Convention as a delegate from Delaware. It seemed eminently fitting and proper that he should take a leading part in this last and most successful attempt to establish a government which it was hoped would secure for his country a more perfect union. He had been conspicuous, it will be remembered, in all the Con- ventions which had been held since such meetings had been resorted to for the purpose of securing united and concerted action. Besides having represented his own State and that of Delaware many times in their differ- ent Assemblies and Conventions, he had been the dele- gate of both in the national Congress. He had been a member of the Congress that protested against the Stamp Act in 1765, a member of the first Continental Congress in 1774, and during four years of the Revolu- tionary War he had continued a most active member of that body. In this way his knowledge of public men in different parts of the country and his experience in public affairs had become invaluable. Moreover, he had been one of the most active members of the com- mittee appointed by Congress in 1776 not only to draft
17
258 ORIGINAL PLAN OF CONFEDERATION.
treaties with foreign powers, but also to prepare arti- cles of confederation between the States, and he had given special study to these subjects, believing that both measures were of such importance that they should be adopted before independence was finally declared.
The original plan for the Confederation remains, in the handwriting of Mr. Dickinson, but it was not re- ported by the committee until the 1 2th of July, when he had left Congress and was in command of his regiment at Elizabethtown. The Articles of Confederation were not ratified by all the States until 1781. Defective as they proved to be, they were doubtless, in those days of jealousy, and in the absence of all true national feeling, the best possible attainable at the time. Be that as it may, however, good or bad, they formed the charter of the government which brought us through the Revolution ; and so far was Mr. Dickinson from being censured by his contemporaries for the want of force which they exhibited, that he was one of the first to call attention to their defects and to suggest a rem- edy. He was certainly one of the most useful and conspicuous members of that illustrious body which framed the Constitution of the United States, as he had been of the Continental Congress, and an exam- ination of the records of the Convention will show how vastly important were his acquaintance with the general principles of English free institutions and his long ex- perience and profound knowledge of affairs in settling the foundations of our great system of constitutional law. He was one of the most active members of the Convention, and took part in the discussion of a great variety of subjects, — a fact which is a little remarkable,
DICKINSON A MEMBER OF THE CONVENTION. 259
for his health during the session was more than usually feeble.
The two points upon which he dwelt most forcibly in the Convention appear to have been the powers which it was proposed to vest in the Executive and the posi- tion to be held by the States of small territorial extent in the scheme of union. He advocated very strongly a choice of the electors of the President directly by the people, and not by the legislatures of the different States, as had been proposed, and as many desired. He thought that the President might be removed by Congress at the request of the majority of the legisla- tures of the different States, and that he should be aided or sustained in the exercise of his functions by a council composed of citizens of States of different geographical positions in the Union, and, moreover, that this Council should exercise jointly with the Presi- dent the power of appointment to office. Mr. Dick- inson's theory of the Union was one which regarded the States as the stable factors and units of our politi- cal system. In the Convention he insisted frequently upon his favorite thesis, as he did during the remainder of his political life, that the States should have the power to check and control in a measure the acts of the President ; but, strange to say, his opinion was due not so much to a jealousy of the power of the Presi- dent as to the belief that authority thus exercised would be more readily supported by the people. He gives these reasons for this opinion, which are worth considering. He contended " that in the British gov- ernment the weight of the Executive arises from attachments which the Crown draws to itself, and not
260 HIS VIEWS ON VARIOUS POINTS.
merely from the force of its prerogatives. In place of these attachments we must look for something else. One source of stability is the double branch of the legislature. The division of the country into distinct States formed the other principal source of stability. The division ought therefore to be maintained, and con- siderable powers to be left with the States. This was his ground of consolation for the future fate of his country."
In regard to the qualification for suffrage, he doubted "the policy of interweaving with a republican Constitu- tion a veneration for wealth. It seemed improper that any man of merit should be subjected to disabilities in a republic, where merit was understood to form the great title to public trusts, honors, and rewards."
The most serious controversy in the Convention arose between the delegates of the larger and those of the smaller States in regard to the number of the representatives which should be sent by each to the national Congress, and upon what basis they were to be elected. The Virginian plan, as it was called, pro- posed by Mr. Edmund Randolph, had provided that the right of suffrage for members of the national legis- lature should be based on the proportion of the quotas of taxes contributed by each, or on the number of the free inhabitants, if such a plan were preferred, and that the members of the first branch, or Senate, should be elected by the people of the several States directly. Mr. Read, of Delaware, having reminded the members that the delegates from that State had been instructed to withdraw from the Convention if any change in the existing rule of suffrage (giving one vote to each State) should be adopted, the consideration of the proposition
ELECTION OF SENATORS. 261
to base the representation upon the number of the inhabitants was postponed. As to the election of Sen- ators by the people instead of by the legislatures, the large States all voted for it and the smaller ones against it in the Committee of the Whole. This result caused serious alarm in the Convention, and many of the delegates began to fear that all hope of a national government would be shipwrecked by collision with an obstacle which it was equally impossible to escape or to overcome. The large majority of the delegates were evidently in favor of proportional representation, while those from the smaller States, feeling that by the adop- tion of such a plan they would be crushed or their influence wholly destroyed, refused, even at the risk of losing a national government, to consent to it. Mr. Dickinson, as representing Delaware, was foremost in this controversy. His first object was to insure an equal representation of each State in the Senate, thus placing there at least the smaller States on a footing of equality with the larger. The Convention, after refusing to agree to propositions that the Senate should be elected by the people in large separate districts, or that it should be appointed by the President out of nominations made by the State legislatures, decided unanimously on the 7th of June, on the motion of Mr. Dickinson, that the members of that body should be chosen, two for each State, by its legislature. Propor- tional representation was confined to the election of the members of the House of Representatives, and thus the great compromise was agreed to, — certainly one of the most original conceptions of the division of powers to be found in the Constitution, and the feature
262 NOVELTY OF THIS ARRANGEMENT.
which above all others has, contrary to the general expectation, commended itself to the approval of all parties during our whole history. If the Senate is the permanent and conservative force in our system, we should not forget, as we are too apt to do, to whose influence we are indebted for the introduction into it of this rare invention of state-craft. How much Mr. Dickinson had this scheme at heart, and how great was the danger at this crisis had it not been adopted, may be inferred from his statement to Mr. Madison, who, as the representative of one of the larger States, had been the strong advocate of a proportional represen- tation in both branches of the national legislature. " You see," said he, " the consequences of pushing things too far. Some of the members of the small States wish for two branches of the national legisla- ture, but we would sooner submit to a foreign rule than be deprived in both branches of an equality of suffrage and thereby be thrown under the domination of the larger States."
Mr. Dickinson, probably from representing the small- est of all the States, was always jealous of their im- portance and dignity in the Union. He drafted the section which prohibits a new State from being formed from the junction of parts of two States without the consent of the States from which the parts were taken, as well as of Congress. He was at all times the cham- pion of the Senate as the guardian and representative of the States. He urged State sovereignty, strange to say, as the guarantee of the stability of the Federal government. But he did it only, as has been said, as the advocate of a strong national government.
OTHER TOPICS DISCUSSED BY DICKINSON. 263
He felt obliged to confine the power of the Union over the State militia to a limited time, because he feared that its unchecked control over the State forces by the general government might endanger the ratifica- tion of the Constitution by the States. He thought, on the other hand, that the general government should have power to suppress domestic violence in all cases, whether it might arise from the State legislation itself, or from disputes between the Houses. Finally, he and Mr. Madison were strenuous supporters of the propo- sition that Congress should have power to repeal any State law which it deemed improper, — that is, contrary to the Constitution of the United States, — a function which was deemed by both these experienced statesmen indispensable to the smooth working of the system, and which has since been exercised through the inter- vention of the courts. Mr. Dickinson presented to the Convention important views concerning many other vital topics which were brought before it, especially in regard to the organization of the judiciary, but, after all, his great reputation as a member of that body must rest upon his having secured for each State, large and small, equal representation in the Senate, and upon his having forced the majority of the delegates to confine the operation of the principle of proportional repre- sentation to the House of Representatives.
After the Constitution was adopted by the Conven- tion, it was necessary that it should pass through the ordeal of popular approval for ratification. Its various provisions were discussed in the bodies called in the different States to consider the question of their adop- tion, with a jealous criticism more minute and searching,
264 DEBATES IN THE CONVENTION SECRET.
if possible, than that which those provisions underwent in the Convention itself. The debates in the Con- vention had taken place with closed doors, and it was understood that all its proceedings were, during the period when the ratification of the Constitution was discussed, kept secret. Hence those who were to de- cide upon the final adoption of the proposed Consti- tution were obliged to make up their minds without having had the advantage, as we have, of knowing the reasons which led the members of the Convention to the conclusions which they reached. The feeling at first among a large portion of the people was doubt- less one of disappointment, due, perhaps, very much to the uncertainty which prevailed in regard to the success of such an experiment, even under the most favorable auspices. They knew nothing of a federal government hitherto, except that it had proved a most ineffective system, trenching, as was alleged, upon the powers of the sovereigns composing it whenever it showed any strength or force. To many, where the new Constitu- tion seemed an improvement of the old, it became strong at the sacrifice of home rule. The fear that such would be the outcome of the work of the Con- vention was very general in certain quarters before its meeting. In Massachusetts, for instance, the legisla- ture having asked Congress to revise the Articles of Confederation before the Convention was held, the delegates of that State declined to present the request, for which the following strange reason was given by Mr. Elbridge Gerry on their behalf: "More power in Congress," said he, " has been the cry from all quarters, but especially of those whose views, not being confined
RATIFICATION UNCERTAIN. 265
to a government that will best promote the happiness of the people, are extended to one that will afford lucra- tive employment, civil and military. Such a government is an aristocracy which would require a standing army and a numerous train of pensioners and placemen to prop and support its exalted administration." These jealous and suspicious fears were worthy of the men who afterwards regarded Jefferson's old red waistcoat and soiled corduroy breeches, his slippers down at the heels and his unshorn beard, as emblems of the sort of republican simplicity which the President should show when he received the ministers of foreign powers. Strange as it may appear, these fears were very real to men moved by the party spirit of the day. Added to dangers such as these which they foresaw from the adoption of the Constitution, they hesitated to take what they called "a leap in the dark." They said, very truly, that they were asked to adopt a plan by an irrevocable step which resembled nothing which they could find in history. Hence there was on all sides, even among those most hostile to the worthless Articles of Confederation, doubt and hesitation.
It was, it is true, stated that the Constitution had been adopted unanimously by the States represented in the Convention ; but it was manifest on its face that it was a compromise of opposite opinions, and it was felt by those who desired its ratification that to secure that object some information and explanation for the public were essential. Thus some of those who had taken the most active part in its formation as members of the Convention undertook this task, and thus it hap- pens that the clearest light thrown upon the proceed-
266 VARIOUS FORMS OF OPPOSITION.
ings of the Convention comes from its own members. Hence Hamilton and Madison in The Federalist, and John Dickinson in his essays signed Fabius, explained the provisions of the Constitution and enforced the necessity of their adoption.
Those who opposed the ratification of the Constitu- tion may be divided, for our purposes, into three classes : First, those who desired that a stronger government — that is, one with more consolidated powers — should be adopted ; most of these, however, afterwards became ardent supporters of the Constitution. The leader of such men as these was Hamilton, who in the beginning had proposed that both the President and the Senators should hold their offices for life, but who, finding him- self alone in that opinion, yielded to those of his col- leagues, and strongly urged, in The Federalist, the rati- fication of the Constitution. Second, those who believed that too much power had been reserved by the Consti- tution to the separate States, holding that the people, and not the States, were the true sovereigns in the formation of a constitution, they only possessing any constituent power which they could delegate. Third, those who believed, on the other hand, that the sover- eignty which they claimed inhered in the States had either been wholly ignored by the provisions of the Constitution or had been given up entirely to the pro- posed national government.
The fundamental differences between the Federalists and the anti-Federalists, friends and opponents of the Constitution, grew out of the different conception which each party held of the relations of the people to the constitution-making power, if we may so call it. While
THE LETTERS OF FABIUS. 267
the Federalists insisted that in the people alone, as dis- tinguished from the States, in their sovereign capacity, lay all the constituent power which was exercised in forming the national Constitution, and that this power had never been delegated to the States, the anti-Feder- alists contended that the States, with all their various attributes of sovereignty, still subsisted when the Con- stitution was framed, and that the States, as such, had entered into a compact or league, to which each had contributed a definite portion of this power to form a national government for the benefit of all. These dif- ferences, in this country always fundamental, were, at the time that the Constitution was adopted, more or less pronounced in various quarters. Vast consequences have flowed in our political history from efforts to es- tablish them as the fixed policy in the administration of the government, and hence it becomes desirable to ascertain how the problem presented itself to a mind like that of Mr. Dickinson, and how he proposed to solve it.
He had contended strongly in the Convention for the conservation of the identity as well as the power of the States, except where it seemed essential that this power should be delegated if a national government of any force was to be established.
In the nine letters signed Fabius, which were pub- lished shortly after the adjournment of the Convention, Mr. Dickinson appears as the ardent champion of the ratification of the new Constitution. He advocated this course, not merely because he thought that the pro- posed government would be better suited for the pur- pose in view than that established by the Articles of
268 CONTRASTED WITH THE FEDERALIST.
Confederation, but because he found that the Constitu- tion accorded with his ideas of a true system of fed- eral government ; and he seems at that time to have been wholly free from that fear of a consolidated gov- ernment by which many others were oppressed. He tried to make it appear that the novel features of the Constitution were its strong ones. He himself, as has been said, was the author of the greatest novelty in it, — that of a double representation, the one by means of sov- ereign States, as he called them, where all should be on a footing of equality, and the other by the people directly, in proportion to their population. These letters, with- out pretending to the comprehensiveness and force of argument which characterize many of the papers of The Federalist, had a wide influence. They were prob- ably intended for a more numerous, and possibly a more popular, audience. Doubtless they did much — as Mr. Dickinson's writings always did — to remove prejudices, and they certainly proved that it was possible for the strongest and most conscientious advocate qf State sovereignty to support warmly the adoption of the Constitution, and to do it in a tone of wise moder- ation.
In his view of the Constitution, Mr. Dickinson began by explaining the nature of a federal system and show- ing the nature of delegated, or, as he called them, "con- tributed," powers.
" When persons speak of a confederation," he says, " do they or do they not acknowledge that the whole is interested in the safety of every part, in the agreement of parts, in the relation of parts to one another, to the whole, or to other societies ? If they do, then the
HO IV OPPRESSION IS TO BE RESISTED. 269
authority of the whole must be coextensive with its interests ; and if it is, the will of the whole must and ought in such cases to govern, or else the whole would have interests without the authority to manage them, — a position which prejudice itself cannot digest."
After saying that the judgment of the most en- lightened among mankind points to the necessity of a division of the governmental powers into great depart- ments, distinct in office and yet connected in operation, he says that it must be granted that a bad administra- tion may take place. " What," he asks, " is then to be done ? The answer is instantly found. Let the fasces be lowered before the supreme sovereignty of the people. It is their duty to watch and their right to take care that the Constitution be preserved, or, in the Roman phrase on perilous occasions, to provide that the republic receive no damage." J This view of the work of the Convention, it may be said, is very unlike that taken by a man who had been President of the United States, and who therefore may have been supposed to understand the true relation of the States to the general government. " The result of all these arrangements," says Mr. Van Buren, in his " Inquiry into the Rise of Political Parties in the United States," published after his death in 1869 (after the war of the Rebellion), "was, that the Federal Constitution was so constructed as to put it in the power of a bare majority of the States to bring the government proposed by it to a peaceable end, without exposing their citizens to the necessity of resorting to force, by simply withhold-
1 In other words, Mr. Dickinson justified "revolution" and not "peaceable secession" in the last resort.
2?o AMPHICTYONIC AND ACHAEAN LEAGUES.
ing the appointment of electors or the choice of their Senators, or both."
Mr. Dickinson then turned, as he was always inclined to do, to history for illustrations of the peculiar posi- tion of confederated republics. Our fathers, it must be remembered, had not the advantage, which we pos- sess, of learning by observation the causes of the fail- ures of so many modern republics. He could find nothing in history which resembled the system proposed for us until he reached the times of the Amphictyonic Council or the Achaean League. These certainly were not modern instances of political institutions, nor did they undertake to provide for the most pressing needs of modern times. The fashion of those days, however, in both the Old World and the New, was to go back to the heroic days of Greece and Rome for models, and Mr. Dickinson followed the example of his contempo- raries. The Amphictyonic Council had a jurisdiction a good deal more enlarged than he has chosen to assign it, but he considers it only as the general court of Greece. He seems to think that in its want of power it resembled somewhat the government which we were then trying to revise, that of the Confederation, for he tells us that it failed because its parts were not suffi- ciently combined to guard against the ambitious, avari- cious, and selfish projects of some of the States, or, if it had the authority, it dared not employ it. To the force and union derived from the Achaean League, on the contrary, he ascribes much of the prosperity and glory of Greece. Its different States, represented in a Diet or Congress, "declared war, made peace, entered into alliances, and compelled every State in the Union to
OBJECTION TO THE SYSTEM AS NOVEL. 271
obey its ordinances. Their chief officer was called Strategos, and he was chosen in the Congress by a majority of votes. He was vested with great powers, especially in time of war, and was liable to be called to account for misbehavior by the Congress." According to Mr. Dickinson's view, their subsequent weakness was to be traced to the faithlessness to their obligations of the States composing this league, and to their intes- tine quarrels. Hence disunion, and not the tendency to aristocracy, made them victims first of the power of Macedonia, and then of Rome.
After drawing what encouragement he could from the experience of the only governments in history which seemed to him to bear any analogy to the federal sys- tem proposed for us, he turns to that objection to its ratification which was undoubtedly the popular one, — that we were asked to try an experiment which might, after all, not only prove a failure, but might also, in the process, involve us in ruin. In short, he had to meet that most natural but most unreasoning objection to any new scheme, — a feeling of uncertainty as to what may happen. He meets this objection in the best way in which it could be met when arguing the question before a popular audience. He shows that the argu- ment from uncertainty as to the result might always be applied to any proposed change, and he enforces this view by a singularly apt illustration. At that time the famous speech of the Earl of Belhaven in opposition to the proposed union between England and Scotland was no doubt familiar to many of his readers. Lord Bel- haven, with a patriotic fervor of rhetoric which has been seldom surpassed, spoke of the proposed union as a
AN APT REPLY.
direful calamity. He pictured in detail the many evils which his imagination conjured up in the future as the inevitable consequence of that measure. He thought he saw, as results of giving up a free and independent Scotland, "the national Church placed upon an equal level with Jews, Papists, Socinians, Armenians, Ana- baptists, and other sectaries ; the noble and honorable peerage of Scotland, whose valiant predecessors had led armies against their enemies at their own costs and charges, now divested of their followers and vassalages ; the present peers of Scotland walking in the Court of Requests like so many English attorneys, laying aside their walking-swords when in company with English peers, lest their self-defence should be found murder ; the honest and industrious tradesman loaded with new taxes and impositions, drinking water in the place of ale, eating his saltless pottage, petitioning for encour- agement to his manufactures," etc., to the end of the chapter.
After explaining the positive merits of the system which it was proposed to adopt, he gives us a most in- teresting history of the article which he himself had so strenuously advocated, and which was, as we have said, a perfectly novel feature in a confederated plan of gov- ernment. "The proposition," he says, "was expressly made by the delegate who brought it forward upon this principle : that a territory of such extent as that of the United States could not be safely and advantageously governed but by a combination of republics, each re- taining all the rights of supreme sovereignty excepting such as ought to be contributed to the Union ; that, for the better preservation of these sovereignties, they
THE SENATE'S POWER EXPLAINED. 273
ought to be represented in a body by themselves, and with equal suffrage ; and that they would be annihi- lated if both branches of the legislature were to be formed of representatives of the people in proportion to the number of inhabitants in each State." There were many who objected to the Constitution because they alleged that in its powers and in their distribution it bore a close resemblance to the English monarchical system. These persons were met with arguments such as these: "Is there more danger to our liberty from such a President as we are to have than to that of Britons from an hereditary monarch with a vast revenue, absolute in the erection and disposal of offices and in the exercise of the whole executive power ; in the com- mand of the militia, fleets, and armies, and the direc- tion of their operations ; in the establishment of fairs and markets, the regulation of weights and measures, and the coining of money ; who can call Parliaments with a breath and dissolve them with a nod ; who can at his will make war and peace, and treaties irrevo- cably binding the nation ; who can grant pardons for crimes and titles of nobility as it pleases him ? Is there more danger to us from twenty-six Senators, or double that number, than to Britons from an hereditary aristo- cratic body, consisting of many hundreds, possessed of enormous wealth in lands and money, strengthened by a host of dependants, and who, availing themselves of defects in the Constitution, send many of these into the House of Commons ; who hold a third part of the legislative power in their own hands, and who form the highest judicature in the nation ? Is there more danger to us from a House of Representatives, to be
18
274 WASHINGTON'S OPINION OF FAB I US.
chosen by all the freemen of the Union every two years, than to Britons from such a sort of representa- tion as they have in the House of Commons, the mem- bers of which are chosen but every seven years ? . . . What bodies are there in Britain vested with such ca- pacities for inquiring into, checking, and regulating the conduct of national affairs as our sovereign States ? What proportion does the number of freeholders in Britain bear to the number of the people, and what is the proportion in the United States?"1
From these extracts it is very clear that Mr. Dickin- son, at the time the Constitution was presented for rati- fication, was a pronounced Federalist, as the term was then understood ; that is, he was its upholder with all
1 The essays of Fabius were published anonymously. The follow- ing letter from General Washington to John Vaughan, expressing his opinion of them, is of interest :
" MOUNT VERNON, April 27th, 1788.
" SIR, — I have received your two letters of the i7th and 25th inst, and the papers containing the four numbers of Fabius which accom- panied them. I must beg you to accept of my best thanks for your polite attention in forwarding those papers to me. The writer of the pieces signed Fabius, whoever he is, appears to be master of his subject ; he treats it with dignity, and at the same time expresses him- self in such a manner as to render it intelligible to every capacity. I have no doubt but an extensive republication of those numbers would be of utility in removing the impressions which have been made upon the minds of many by an unfair or partial representation of the pro- posed Constitution, and would afford desirable information upon the subject to those who sought for it.
" I am happy to hear of your father's safe arrival in Jamaica; you will please to tender my regards to him whenever you write. " I am, sir, y'r most obed't h'ble serv't,
"G. WASHINGTON.
" JOHN VAUGHAN."
STATE SOVEREIGNTY INSISTED UPON. 275
its peculiarities, the good in its provisions far surpass- ing, in his opinion, its objectionable features. It is clear that he advocated its adoption not merely because it supplied the defects of the Articles of Confederation, but also because it established an orderly system which, if not ideally perfect, had the merit of satisfying the wants of the larger number of the people. He went further, perhaps, than many Federalists of the time in laying stress upon the sovereignty or autonomy of the States, but, as we have said, he did this on conservative grounds ; and possibly his mind had been specially di- rected to the dangers of proportional representation from his position as a delegate in the Continental Con- gress from the smallest of all the States. He seems, however, to have been affected, as time went on, by that alarming fear of a national consolidation of power which was felt by many anti-Federalists as the greatest danger to which the new system was exposed.
These essays of Mr. Dickinson are remarkable for the absence of any display of partisan feeling. They do not advocate the views of any particular political school. They read, as indeed do nearly all Dickinson's controversial writings, like the teachings of a philoso- pher, and their authority is vastly enhanced by the calm serenity and moderation of their tone. One would hardly suppose that they were written while a fierce fight of the friends and opposers of the proposed Constitution was going on around him. For the time being, at least, he took the part which had always so well become him, that of an independent. He hoped to persuade his readers to listen rather to the voice of reason than to that of party leaders.
276 CONTROVERSY ABOUT THE CONSTITUTION.
It turned out, unfortunately, that he had underesti- mated the violence of popular passion. The contro- versy which had begun before the Convention met, and which was most active during its deliberations, was not closed when the Constitution was adopted and the new government had gone into operation. The same par- ties now found a new question, or rather the old ques- tion with a new face, in the interpretation of that instrument, about the adoption of which so fierce a struggle had been waged. The anti-Federalists ob- jected to many of the measures which were urged, on the ground that a strict construction of its powers gave to the general government no authority to enact them. In short, the controversy was reopened with re- newed vigor in regard to the merits respectively of a system more or less centralized and of one which was simply a federal compact using only powers clearly delegated ; and these were the standards by which every measure proposed in Congress was tested. The Federalists, as is well known, insisted upon the right of the new government to exercise what were called im- plied powers, — that is to say, those which were neces- sarily derived from the general powers granted by the Constitution ; while the anti-Federalists interpreted the Constitution to mean that no powers were to be exer- cised which had not been granted in express terms. The result was that many public men, and Mr. Dickin- son was one of them, became alarmed at the liberal construction which was placed upon these provisions by the first administration, and, in the discussion that followed, the old crucial question whether the Constitu- tion was an instrument formed solely by the constituent
FEDERAL LEGISLATION EXCITES ALARM. 277
power of the people, or whether it was a compact between sovereign States possessing only powers ex- pressly delegated, divided the people of the country into two political parties. More or less it has been a cause of permanent difference between parties ever since. Perhaps it may not be considered absolutely settled at this day, although it has been submitted to that ordeal which fundamental irreconcilable differences in a nation must undergo in the last resort, that of civil war.
In the first administration, that of General Wash- ington, such measures as the assumption of the State debts, the funding system, the protection of American manufactures by duties on imports, the internal revenue system, the incorporation of the United States Bank, and other measures of a general character, were all not merely regarded as violations of the Constitution, as it was said no express power existed to enact them, but were generally spoken of also by their opponents as indicating a dangerous tendency to consolidate power in the hands of the national government, and therefore a desire on the part of their advocates to establish here a monarchical system under a republican form.
Exactly what part Mr. Dickinson took in these dis- cussions it 'is not easy to say with certainty. On the one side we have his opinions in regard to the Consti- tution, of which we have spoken, and of which he was the strenuous supporter and advocate ; and on the other is the well-known fact that he was the warm friend of Mr. Jefferson and of his administration, and that he was frequently consulted by him in regard to the policy of certain proposed public measures.
278 DICKINSON RETIRES FROM PUBLIC LIFE.
Mr. Dickinson was not a member of Congress, nor did he hold any Federal public office, after the adop- tion of the Constitution, but it would appear from his writings and correspondence during the remainder of his life that he was in a party sense an anti-Federalist, or Republican, as the Democrats were then called.1
1 It would appear from the following correspondence that his friends were desirous that he should represent Delaware in the Senate at this time :
" DEAR SIR, — Permit me to congratulate you upon the adoption of the Federal government. The enclosed paper contains some of my feelings upon this most auspicious event. It is intended as a present to Miss Sally.
" The success of the new government in restoring order to our country will depend very much upon the talents and principles of the gentlemen who are to compose the Federal legislature. Your friends in Philadelphia have desired you to be one of the members of the Senate from the Delaware State. I know how perfectly your present tranquil mode of life accords with the present happy frame of your mind. But remember, my dear friend, that ' none liveth to himself.' Even our old age is not our own property. All its fruits of wisdom and experience belong to the public. ' To do good' is the business of life. ' To enjoy rest"1 is the happiness of heaven. We pluck pre- mature or forbidden fruit when we grasp at rest on this side the grave. I know, too, your present infirm state of body ; but an active interest in the great objects and business of the new legislature for a few years, by giving tone to your mind, will invigorate your body. Should you only assist with your advice for one or two years, till all the wheels of the great machine are set in motion, your country will forgive your resignation of your seat in the Senate afterwards.
"With most respectful compts. to Mrs. Dickinson and Miss Sally and love to Miss Maria, in which my dear Mrs. Rush joins, I am, my dear sir, Yours sincerely,
"BENJ'N RUSH."
" MY DEAR FRIEND, — I am much obliged for thy letter of last month, and should be very desirous of pursuing the advice of a
CHANGE OF HIS POLITICAL VIEWS. 279
During the seventeen years that he lived after the Constitution was ratified, his keen interest in public affairs and the eagerness with which his opinions con- cerning the policy of public measures was sought led him often to express his opinions, although he held no official position. We are left to speculate, as we have said, as to the causes which changed the views of a man who had been regarded during his whole previous life as a conservative of the conservatives, and led him to support those who advocated the popular, almost revolutionary, doctrines which were at one time (when the influence of the French Revolution was first felt here) held by the anti-Federalists, and who were opposed to the administration of the Federal gov- ernment under General Washington and Mr. Adams. In the absence of any trustworthy history of the rise of political parties in this country (hiatus valde deflendus), we are at a loss to explain accurately the causes of this wonderful transformation. We think it very clear, however, that the Democratic views — if we may so call
friend who wishes well not only to me but to his country. How- ever, it is impossible for me to engage again in the duties of public life. I believe there is not a man upon earth besides myself who can form any idea of the distresses, from weakness of body, that I have undergone by endeavoring to sustain a public character with some decency while laboring under such infirmities.
" I cannot think, with such a constitution and at such an age, of subjecting myself again to such inconveniences.
"Be pleased to accept my heartiest congratulations on the adop- tion by the eleventh State, and to believe me
" Thy sincere friend,
" JOHN DICKINSON.
"WILMINGTON, August 4, 1788.
"DR. RUSH."
28o THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
them — held by Mr. Dickinson were as different from those maintained by the anti-Federalists, in regard to the interpretation of the Constitution and to the " rights of man" after the French model, as they were from those of Hamilton, Fisher Ames, or other pronounced Fed- eralists. Mr. Dickinson, as representing Delaware, was necessarily an anti-Federalist and the opponent of any measure which looked towards the centralization of the national power, and that was enough in those early days to make him a good Democrat.
But while parties here were violently discussing ques- tions relating to the interpretation of the Constitu- tion, an unexpected event occurred which turned men's minds to a different method of ascertaining their friend- liness or hostility to popular principles. That event was the French Revolution, which began its course a few months after our government under the Constitution was organized. The body of the American people had no doubt in the beginning of the genuineness and success of the French republic, and they viewed all doubts in others as arising from a love of monarchy. The Federalists were charged with a design to intro- duce into this country a government similar to that of England. The Alien and Sedition Laws, based upon an enactment in that country designed to stop the progress of the French Revolution there, were most unpopular here. The Senate, the Judiciary, and the Ex- ecutive were pointed out as differing from the French republican system and so far differing from true repub- licanism. The enthusiasm in favor of the French in this country, and the sympathy which was manifested towards them because they stood alone in Europe,
OUR RELATIONS TO IT. 281
threatened with attacks from all the great monarchical powers, were intense. The excesses of the terrorists, and, later, even the ambition of Bonaparte, did not destroy all the illusions which had taken possession of the anti-Federalists. They went so far as to insist that the only true type of liberty was that of which France had set us the example, that our own was but a "bastard imitation," and that their opponents were only monarchists in disguise, who were restrained by the good faith and honesty of Washington alone from turning our system in form, as they had already done in substance, into a monarchical government, such as that of Great Britain. The Federalists were not be- hind their opponents in denouncing the schemes and the doctrines of the Democrats. They called them Jacobins and infidels, and denounced them as dis- organizers and revolutionists in State and in Church. When our foreign affairs became entangled with their troubles, as they soon did when hostilities broke out in i 793 between England and France, all who thought that the policy of the administration towards the bel- ligerents should be that of cautious neutrality were denounced as faithless to our alliance with France, and as lacking in sympathy with those who in the Old World were struggling for liberty against tyrants. Neither the excesses of their revolution nor the extraordinary proceedings of Genet, the first minister of the republic here, in 1 793, his insolent defiance of the government which had, as a neutral power, forbidden him to com- mission privateers in our ports to cruise against the English commerce, or his threatened appeal to the people in favor of France from the order of the govern-
282 DIFFERENT SCHOOLS OF DEMOCRATS.
ment to which he was accredited as minister, — none of these events could dispel the infatuation which led cer- tain newspapers of the party to denounce the course of the administration towards this truculent envoy. This party was the anti-Federal, Democratic, or Re- publican (for by all three of these names it was called at different times), and to it Mr. Dickinson is said to have belonged.
It should be said, however, that although Mr. Dick- inson advocated strongly the French alliance as a proper measure of our foreign policy, he never justified the excesses of the French Revolution on any ground. In the essays of Fabius he speaks of the " reign of monsters in France having ended," and, later, of the danger in which the country was placed by the " flood of atheism and democracy" which was pouring in upon us from France. Indeed, a government of violence and force, whether under the control of the monarch or under that of the mob, had always been opposed to his political instincts. The, truth is that the Democratic party of that day, to give it the name which was finally assumed by the. opponents of the first two administra- tions, was a body of a composite nature, its different parts attracting adherents for very different reasons. Thus, the governing classes in the Southern States called themselves Democrats or Republicans, but their political doctrines were based upon State sovereignty and a jealousy of the national government, and not upon any sympathy with the doctrines of equality and of popular rights laid down in the declaration of " droits derhomme et du citoyen." In that section of the coun- try the ideal of the commonwealth was an agricultural
DEMOCRACY IN THE NORTH AND WEST. 283
community formed of people with simple habits and needs, resembling that which prevailed in Virginia pre- vious to the Revolution, the established Church and the entailed estates being destroyed. There was among this class a strong aversion to the trading classes, who were supposed to owe their fortunes to the weakness or the misfortunes of other portions of the community, and who were charged with having so managed the government under the administrations of General Washington and Mr. Adams as to have enriched them- selves by the operation of the Funding Bill and kin- dred measures.
In the Northern and Western States, on the contrary, where society was very differently organized, Democ- racy presented to its adherents a different, if not an opposite, face. The party was especially large and dominant in the cities, and there European ideas of democracy formed the moving impulse, while questions of strict construction or the claims of State sovereignty were regarded as simple abstractions, without any prac- tical importance or value whatever. There, sympathy with the ideas of the French Revolution was strong, and it was insisted that in our foreign policy we should favor France, even at the risk of violating our neu- trality and at the expense of the other belligerent. Moreover, the Democratic party and indeed all parties at the North at that time were made up of an active, aggressive, and enterprising people, who were seeking by their own industry, trade, and commerce to enrich themselves, feeling that while they did so they were thereby increasing the influence and power of their country among the nations of the earth.
284 JEFFERSON'S DREAD OF CENTRALIZATION.
The cardinal principle of Mr. Jefferson, the leader of the Democratic party, was a dread of centralization, — a danger, 'according to him, inherent in the Constitu- tion we had adopted, and made clearly apparent by the measures of those who first administered it. He no doubt honestly thought, as he repeatedly said, that by his election as President in 1801 this country had been rescued from the English monarchical system which his opponents were striving to establish. This belief (which seems to have been prevalent at the time among many prominent public men, but which is utterly unsupported by any evidence which history offers us) appears to have tinged his opinion of all the measures of the Federalists. Mr. Jefferson, besides feeling, like all the disciples of Rousseau, little sympathy with the trading classes of the nation, shown among other ways by such phrases as this, "that he wished that this country was separated from Europe by an ocean of fire," was in many respects what the French call an ideologue. His idea of statesmanship when he became President was to make every effort to harmonize parties at home (for he thought that the mass of his opponents had been deluded, but that they were not wilful in their delu- sions and would not persist in them), and to conduct our foreign affairs so as not to involve us in war. He seems to have had little conception of the imperial des- tiny which awaited his country. He had a passion for simplicity in all things, and especially in the adminis- tration of that most complex of human machines, a pop- ular government. " What is necessary," he says, " to make us a happy and prosperous people? A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from
EFFECT OF JEFFERSON'S INFLUENCE. 285
injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and im- provement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities." These ideas of the functions of gov- ernment, which have never assumed any practical shape in its administration during our history, and least of all during the Presidency of Jefferson, seem to have had a strange fascination for Mr. Dickinson. No stronger proof could be given of Jefferson's ex- traordinary capacity of influencing other men's minds, often those of his contemporaries who had been most thoroughly trained in state-craft, than Dickinson's con- version to his views. By adopting them he seemed to disown all the principles which had up to that time formed the basis of his political life. Hitherto he had always contended that he could form no conception of liberty unless guarded and protected by law, and that the only government in history which had brought liberty into friendly alliance with law was the English. Now we find him defending the new French theories, holding apparently with Mr. Jefferson that government should be a mere police force, and that social liberty requires no other safeguard for its protection. All this would seem strange and inexplicable enough, did we not remember that in France the wisest of phil- osophers and statesmen had been moved from their most strongly entrenched habits and prejudices as ad- vocates of absolutism in government by the passion- ate declamations of Rousseau and Diderot to adopt similar opinions.
286 LETTERS TO GOVERNOR M^KEAN.
The two following letters, the first written on the day Mr. Jefferson was inaugurated, and the other some time previously, are good specimens of the opinions of Mr. Dickinson on the delusions of the Federalists :
" WILMINGTON, the fourth of the third Month, 1801. "To GOVERNOR McKEAN :
"My DEAR FRIEND, — This day, added to the memorable events that have latterly preceded it, completes the wishes of those who sincerely love their country.
"Among that honorable band with pleasure I count my old friend, and therefore offer to him my heartiest congratulations.
"Having from my first outset in public life been deeply affected by the charms of Liberty, and having from that early period to my old age been, as thou knows, without fee or reward an advocate for her slandered righteous cause, the review affords me great satisfaction ; and I thank God that I have lived to see her sacred, salutary princi- ples so warmly adopted by my fellow-citizens, and so far practised upon for the accomplishment of all the blessings that by the laws of our nature are made dependent on her existence.
" Next to the humble hope of admittance into the mansions of everlasting happiness, the most cheerful prospect to us who are likely soon to land on the shore of immortality from this side of life, on which all who are dear to us are to continue still embarked, is purely this, that ' De Republica nil desperandum. '
" With an affection unimpaired by years, I remain thy friend,
" JOHN DICKINSON."
" WILMINGTON, the Qth of the yth Month, 1800. " To GOVERNOR McKEAN :
" MY DEAR FRIEND, — Thy letter of the 23d of last month, with the enclosure, is received, for which be pleased to accept my thanks.
" I can form some estimate of the ' cares and labors' that must in- cessantly have engaged mind arid body for the last six months, and rejoice at the prospect of ' calmer seas and gentle breezes. '
" I cannot but entertain hopes that many thousands of the deluded inhabitants of Pennsylvania will become sincere converts to Repub- licanism when they find the government of Republicans uniting
JEFFERSON AND THE POLICE POWER. 287
sound policy, firmness, justice, and mercy in its administration, and faithfully aiming at the promotion of general happiness. As for the deluders, the various classes of which have been well defined, may they ever be restrained by an unintermitting vigilance from endan- gering the public welfare. Their passions and prejudices deserve not the name of principles. They are hostile to liberty and the best interests of mankind, and I like the determination that gives them their proper title and meets them face to face.
" I hope my old friend will eminently contribute to vindicate the cause of truth, freedom, and human felicity. It is a cause allied to heaven, and it is better to defy its foes than to treat with them.
" I begin to entertain expectations that internally things are work- ing together for good ; but when I turn my view to the country of s forms, l nimborum in patriam,' I confess I look for nothing but deceitful calms, to be succeeded by the most furious and tempestu- ous agitation which ambition, avarice, and revenge are capable of exciting. ' '
It is, however, to be remembered that Mr. Jefferson's conception of government included practically many things which would not seem to be embraced by his narrow definition of its appropriate functions. It in- cluded not only the guarantee of equal and exact jus- tice to all men under its rule, but the establishment of peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none, the support of the State governments in all their rights, the preserva- tion of the general government in its whole constitu- tional vigor, absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics (from which, as he said, there is no appeal but to force), the enrol- ment of a well-disciplined militia, economy in the public expenses, and, indeed, almost all the objects which have been sought for by men since governments were first
288 CORRESPONDENCE WITH JEFFERSON.
established by them on earth. Doubtless it was not to a government exercising simply police powers, but to one which was made wise and beneficial by exercising the powers enumerated in Mr. Jefferson's commentary on his original definition, that Mr. Dickinson gave his willing adhesion.
The correspondence between Jefferson and Dickin- son during the early years of Jefferson's administration was most confidential and intimate. The President writes to Dickinson on the 2ist of June, 1801, on a subject which has tormented him, as it has done many Presidents since, — the distribution of official patronage. He says that he has been urged to appoint a person, of whom he knows nothing, Collector of the Customs in Delaware, and he writes confidentially to his friend for information, in case it be desirable to make any removal, "for," he says, "you know Republicans do not admit the removing any person from office merely for a dif- ference of political opinion." So on the igth of De- cember of the same year he writes more fully on general politics. "The approbation of my ancient friends is above all things the most grateful to my heart. They know for what objects we relinquished the delights of domestic society, of tranquillity and science, and committed ourselves to the ocean of revo- lution, to wear out the only life God has given us here, in scenes the benefits of which will accrue only to those who follow us. Surely we had in view to obtain the theory and practice of good government ; and how any who s.eemed so ardent in this pursuit could so shame- fully have apostatized, and supposed we meant only to put our government in other hands but not other forms,
JEFFERSON'S THEORY OF GOVERNMENT. 289
is indeed wonderful. The lesson we have had will probably be useful to the people at large, by showing to them how capable they are of being made the in- struments of their own bondage. A little more pru- dence and moderation in those who had mounted them- selves on their fears, and it would have been long and difficult to unhorse them. Their madness has done in three years what reason alone, acting against them, would not have effected in many, and the more so as they might have gone on forming new entrenchments for themselves from year to year. My great anxiety at present is to avail ourselves of our ascendency to establish good principles and good practices, to fortify republicanism behind as many barriers as possible, that the outworks may give time to rally and save the citadel, should that be again in danger. On their part they have retired into the Judiciary as a stronghold. There the remains of Federalism are to be preserved and fed from the treasury, and from that battery all the works of Federalism are to be beaten down and erased. By a fraudulent use of the Constitution which has made judges irremovable, they have multiplied useless judges merely to strengthen their phalanx."
It would probably help us very much in forming an estimate of Mr. Dickinson's character, after he became a friend of Mr. Jefferson, if we could discover the letter to which this extraordinary production of the latter was an answer, or if we could know how he regarded the opinions expressed in it. Unfortunately, after a dili- gent search, no direct reference to this letter is to be found among Mr. Dickinson's papers. Of one thing we may be assured, — that whatever Dickinson may have
J9
290 DICKINSON'S PECULIAR DEMOCRACY.
thought of the Federalists and their schemes, and es- pecially of John Adams, whom he had good reason to distrust, he never posed as the savior of his country, claiming that he had helped to rescue it from the immi- nent danger (which existed only in the imagination of some of the most violent of the Democratic party) of the transformation of the government into a monarchy. Nothing is more remarkable, as the reader must have observed, in all the controversial writings of Mr. Dick- inson, than his careful abstinence from ascribing bad motives and sinister designs to his political opponents. Whether that opponent was Galloway, who tried to keep him out of the Continental Congress, in 1774, because he thought him not loyal to the British Crown, or John Adams, who denounced him because he thought him too friendly to it, his attitude was always the same, — a dignified and contemptuous silence, a calm conscious- ness that his actions would speak louder than words. So far as I have been able to discover, friend as he was of Mr. Jefferson, there is no evidence that he ever believed in that conspiracy of the Federalists to overturn the government and establish in its place a monarchy, the rumor of which so much alarmed the country, and the fear of which had so much to do with Mr. Jefferson's election to the Presidency.
Their correspondence continued during the first term of Mr. Jefferson's office. There is, among others, an interesting letter from him dated gih of August, 1803, concerning the Louisiana purchase and the hopes with which he was inspired by this acquisition to our territory. Of course neither he nor any one else could have foreseen, at that time, what an imperial
CESSION OF LOUISIANA. 291
domain these lands were to become in our hands. He says, "The acquisition of New Orleans would of itself have been a great thing, as it would have insured to our Western brethren the means of exporting their produce [this was the territory which our Commissioners in France were instructed to negotiate for], but that of Louisiana is inappreciable, giving us the sole dominion of the Mississippi. It excludes those bickerings which we know of a certainty would have put us at war with France immediately, and it secures to us the course of a peaceable nation. The unquestioned bounds of Louisiana are the Iberville and the Mississippi on the east, the Mexicano [Sabine River], or the highlands east of it, on the west, thence from the heads of the Mexicano, gaining the highlands which include the waters of the Mississippi and its source, where we join the English, or perhaps to the Lake of the Woods." He then speaks of the well-known constitutional diffi- culties about the purchase of the territory, and goes on to say, " With respect to the disposal of the country — we must take the island of New Orleans and the west side of the river as high up as Point Coupee, containing nearly the whole inhabitants, say about fifty thousand, and erect it into a State or annex it to the Mississippi Territory, and shut up all the rest from settlement for a long time," etc. He thinks it might serve as a place for transferring the Indians east of the Mississippi, and that this arrangement would present a double advan- tage, as the price for which the lands then held by the Indians could be sold would go far towards paying the purchase-money of Louisiana.
Mr. Dickinson, however, was not always in sympathy
292 DIFFERS WITH MR. JEFFERSON.
with Mr. Jefferson's opinions or public acts. In the year 1805 there was a strong disposition manifested, especially in the Southern States, for the acquisition of Florida from Spain. As we had claims against the Spanish government for spoliations of the property of our citizens at New Orleans and at sea, and as there had been some incursions made by her Mexican troops on the line of the Sabine River (our southern frontier), it was hoped that by negotiating with the Spanish government all these difficulties might be settled at one time and the purchase or acquisition of Florida finally completed. Mr. Monroe was sent to Madrid to conduct this business, and completely failed to get any redress for our complaints or to make any advance towards the acquisition of Florida. It was thought proper by the President, in order to bring Spain to terms, to assume in his annual message, December, 1805, a warlike tone towards her. Probably Mr. Jeffer- son had no intention of carrying out his threats, espe- cially as the public clamor at that time against the out- rages of England and France upon our neutral com- merce seemed more likely to force us into war with them than with Spain. But the tone of Mr. Jefferson's message alarmed Mr. Dickinson, and, friend as he was of the President, he felt called upon to remonstrate in the following letter to Dr. Logan :
John Dickinson to George Logan, Senator in Congress.
MY DEAR KINSMAN, — I have read the Message again and again, and the more I study it the less I like the most important sections of it. Perhaps future communications may throw light on the dark parts. At present they are obscured by a very portentous gloom. Particulars are not brought into view ; but they must be outrageous
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 293
indeed, to correspond with the language that has been used in re- ferring to them.
Surely we are not to be plunged into a war on account of such characters as the Kempfers. The idea that occurs to me is this — that our government has committed momentous errors in the nego- tiation with Spain, which cannot well be retracted, and now en- deavors to cover them by an excitement of national passion. I have not the least doubt but that we have improperly alarmed and provoked her.
The western limits of Louisiana have never been ascertained by any treaties, ancient maps, or documents, that have come to my hands. Yet I have reason to believe that our late claims extend to the Rio Bravo, otherwise called the River of the North.
Then, again, to the northwestward our claims, as far as I am informed, are founded on arbitrary inferences from equivocal prem- ises, whether becoming a great, just, and generous nation, I trust, will be most solemnly considered.
Perhaps, without deciding on the property of that vast country, or even allowing the property of the greater part of it to be in Spain, the only benefit that for ages can be derived from it, that is, a right of trading with the Indian tribes that inhabit it, might be secured to these States.
As to our eastern boundary, if it cannot be now finally established, it seems to me that at least a convention might be made for quieting the possessions of both parties until it can be established. This measure has frequently been adopted by nations differing about their boundaries.
Devoted as I am to the Executive, it is painful to me to feel myself compelled to think as I do on the present state of our affairs.
To rush into war at this time for the wildernesses beyond the river Mexicano, or on the remote waters of the Missouri, would be, in my opinion, madness. We want them not. We can hereafter have as much territory as we ought to desire. Nothing is so likely to prevent such acquisitions as the seeking them too eagerly, unrea- sonably, and contemptuously. In the natural course of things we shall, if wise, gradually become irresistible, and the people will sink into our population. Let us patiently wait for this inevitable pro- gression, and not deprive ourselves, of the golden eggs that will be
294 JAY'S TREATY.
laid for us by destroying in a covetous and cruel frenzy the bird that, if left to itself, will from day to day supply them.
If thy sentiments on this subject accord with mine, let me most ardently entreat thee to make the strongest and incessant exertions to bring over others to approve and act upon them. Not a moment is to be lost. . . .
Before I close this letter I must recall thy attention to the im- politic and dishonorable trade to St. Domingo. Renew, I beseech thee, in due season thy motion to prohibit that trade entirely. Our rapacity in that respect and our ambition in acquiring territory will destroy our peace, our welfare, our reputation.
Let us never forget how essential a character for moderation is to the happiness of a republic, nor the dreadful comment made upon it by the League of Cambray.
I am, very truly, thy affectionate cousin,
JOHN DICKINSON.
WILMINGTON, the igth of the I2th month, 1805.
In 1795 political passions were at fever-heat through- out the country. The excitement was caused by the ratification of Jay's treaty with England. By this measure we were supposed to have practically aban- doned our alliance with France, and to have submitted to ignominious terms in the agreement we had made with England. There was no yielding up of the forts in our territory which had been held contrary to the treaty of 1783, no compensation for the carrying off of negro slaves during the war, no giving up of the impressment of seamen, nothing but restrictions upon our commerce with the colonies of Great Britain, while our ports were to be free for her vessels. The provisions of this treaty became the occasion of the most wearisome debates of the time. Matters of domestic interest were forgotten for the moment by politicians who thought very much more how their acts might aid the
STRONG OBJECTIONS TO IT. 295
foreign policy of the French Convention or affect Mr. Pitt's measures than of the most important home in- terests. During the first ten years of the existence of the government many foolish things were done, many more talked of; but that our opinions on our own politi- cal measures should be determined by the encourage- ment or opposition which they gave to the French Revolution could hardly have been dreamed of when the Constitution was planned. There was but one policy for us to pursue in our intercourse with foreign countries, and that was the one afterwards laid down by Jefferson, of " avoiding entangling alliances." There was but one practical question for us to settle, and that was how far the treaty of alliance of 1778 imposed upon us the obligation of aiding France in her present struggle. Mr. Dickinson felt it his duty after the rati- fication of Jay's treaty to come forward and plead for the continued alliance with France. Such was the motive which led to the publication of the second series of letters signed Fabius, which appeared in 1 798. We find in his correspondence with Governor McKean an explanation of the reasons which led him to take a part in this controversy.
John Dickinson to Thomas McKean.
(No date.)
MY DEAR FRIEND, — A strong sense of duty compels me to offer some remarks on the present situation of public affairs to the con- sideration of my fellow-citizens. The first number has appeared, under the signature of "Fabius," in the New World of the i2th instant.
My infirmities are so great that I cannot bear the fatigue of turning over many books or publications ; but, after some preparatory letters,
296 LETTER TO GOVERNOR MCKEAN.
I propose to consider the causes of disgust our conduct has given to the French government.
As we think, I believe, a good deal alike on late transactions, as I know thy extensive information, and can rely on thy friendship, I request thee, in the name of our country, to give me what assistance circumstances will permit.
To me it appears that the best way of proceeding will be to select a few striking points, the grounds of which can be maintained against any attacks. To make weak charges will do no good, and may do harm.
I take it that the late treaty gives advantages in commerce to Great Britain which she had not before. What are they, that it gives her greater advantages than France has ? What are these, that it con- tains violations in words, or in effect, of our treaty with France? What are those also ?
In short, I earnestly desire thee to supply me every sort of useful information that thou thinkest my feeble diligence may apply, agree- ably to thy wishes.
I do not desire to obtrude my name on the public, and therefore I should prefer that the fact of my being the writer should rather be
guessed at than avowed.
#####***
Thy truly affectionate friend, JOHN.
Mr. Dickinson's object in printing these letters was the conciliation of parties, and the establishment of a policy in our dealings with France upon which all could agree, because it would be based upon justice and a proper sense of gratitude to that country. They con- tain almost the first words of truth and soberness which had been written on this subject in this country. Here- tofore our relations with England and France had de- pended much upon the possession of power by the Federalists or by the Republicans. Mr. Dickinson de- sired that our foreign relations should be placed upon a
THE MAZZEI LETTER OF JEFFERSON. 297
juster and a broader basis. He took, therefore, very high ground against any action on our part which would be likely to weaken the French alliance of 1778. In 1797, it is to be remembered, Bonaparte was un- known on this side of the ocean, and no one dreamed of the extraordinary military success which attended his future career. France presented herself then in the attitude of a republic only, having proved herself competent to establish her liberties upon the trophies of her victories over those who had denied her right to live, stretching out her right hand to us, and prof- fering to us her friendship. While she was in this amiable condition, we must be willing to forget, it was said, the fancied insults of Genet and Adet, or re- gard them as the outbreaks of an exuberant activity, and remember that whatever else changed in France, and however corrupt and truculent her present rulers might be, the French people, like the American people, still survived behind all parties : in short, that the cord of sympathy was unbroken between us. There is one peculiarity about these letters, so uncommon at that time as to be very striking, and that is the absence of that tone of exaggeration, abuse, and ascription of bad motives to opponents which was then well-nigh univer- sal in the political controversies of the time. Their tone was very unlike that of Jefferson, for instance. Take the famous Mazzei letter as an example, in which Mr. Jefferson tells his correspondent "that an Anglican monarchical and aristocratical party had sprung up. The open purpose of these men was to pull over the United States the substance, as they had already done the forms, of the British government. The Executive
298 DICKINSON AND JEFFERSON CONTRASTED,
was with them, the Judiciary was with them. All the officers of the government, all men who wished to be officers, all who traded on British capital, who speculated in the funds, who owned shares in the bank, were joined together on the English side." It is worth while to contrast the rancorous hatred of his opponents which is expressed by Jefferson in these words with the calm, dignified, statesmanlike spirit which Dickinson brings to the discussion of these same questions about the same time. Nothing is more strikingly characteristic of the difference between the minds of these two men, or shows more clearly where the true superiority rests. As it turned out, both of them were fighting what proved to be mere phantoms, Mr. Jefferson dealing with an English monarchical party which was non- existent except in his imagination, and Mr. Dickinson with a French nation which had no ambition for con- quest, with Napoleon at its head, and hence these pro- ductions remain as specimens only of the style adopted by each in discussing political questions. The one has all the tricks of the politician ; the other, although a party writer, shows the anxious desire of the seeker after truth to reach the reason and the hearts of those whom he addressed.
He speaks of the value especially of our friendship with France. Like all the diplomatists of the Revolu- tion, he does not advocate the policy of such a relation upon any sentimental or humanitarian grounds, nor does he appeal to the fact that both nations are re- publics, but he urges friendly relations with France for the simple reason that our self-interest demands them. He says, indeed, that he regards the establishment of
STRONG PARTIALITY FOR FRANCE. 299
a republic in France as an auspicious event in the his- tory of mankind, and that on every account it is our interest to consolidate the strength of such a republic in Europe, to work for her peace and prosperity, and to aid her in securing it, by making our alliance still stronger.
If Mr. Dickinson had been led, as we may think, to advocate a French alliance too strongly and too unre- servedly, we must attribute the error to the generosity of his nature, and to the gratitude which he always felt for what France had done for us. In common with some of the most illustrious men of that generation, especially in England (of whom Sir James Mackintosh, the author of the famous Vindicice Gallicce, was the most conspicuous), nearly every one was blinded by the en- thusiasm which was felt for the success of the French Revolution. Mr. Dickinson regarded it as the begin- ning of a new and happy era in the history of mankind. He was willing to look upon its early excesses as par- donable, or perhaps inevitable, considering the work which in the providence of God he felt that it had been appointed to do. Hence his faith in French republican- ism was persistent, and this was no doubt the ground of his earnest desire that this country should extend to republican France a practical sympathy in every way in our power.
But the time came when there could be no longer any doubt that the French government and the French nation had become tired of republicanism and were ready to substitute for it an imperial system. This change of sentiment became apparent when the rup- ture of the Peace of Amiens, concluded in 1802, made
300 PAMPHLET ON FRENCH AFFAIRS.
it clear that the ambition of Napoleon, and not the happiness of the people under republican methods, would be thenceforth the governing motive in French policy. The conviction that such a change had taken place changed at once the current of Mr. Dickinson's sympathies. From having been an ardent friend of France, and a promoter of an alliance on our part which would draw the two nations more closely to- gether, he became as bitter an opponent of the French imperial system as the most ardent Federalist in the country. In 1803 he wrote and printed anonymously a pamphlet entitled " An Address on the Past, Present, and Eventual Relations of the United States to France." In this pamphlet he describes all that France had done for us in the Revolution, and insists that our obligations of gratitude to her when ^she became a republic were in every way stronger than if she had preserved the monarchy ; that while one party here had neglected to recognize these obligations, the other had always striven to enforce them.
" But," he says, rushing from one extreme to the other, and contrasting the picture of what France was and what she might be, actual and potential, under a republic, with what she was likely to become, as far as foreign powers were concerned, under the new regime, "it has become our painful office to declare that these pleasing hopes have vanished. The virtues appear to be proscribed by ambition. A gigantic power seems animated by the devastating spirit of conquest, and glares with a fierce aspect on all around." In gen- uine alarm he goes on to say, " When we consider the ascendency which France has acquired over Spain, we
CHANGE OF VIEWS.
think that the territories of the latter on this continent may, with propriety of language, be said to belong to the former; and when we consider, also, how unim- portant Louisiana must be of itself to France, we can- not entertain the least doubt but that the French government means to acquire the dominion of all America, and that the possession of Louisiana is to be the first act of the tragedy." He goes on still more violently to deplore the fate of this country: " Your young men and your sailors will be compelled to serve in armies and on board of fleets in distant regions and untried climes wherever the ambition and rapacity of their masters may destine them, to bleed and to perish, while large bodies of foreign soldiers will be stationed among you, to extort taxes from you and to awe you into submission under every injury and insult." What, it may be asked, is the remedy sug- gested for these direful calamities? "A conjunction of the naval powers of Britain and these States may in a short time seize every island held by France and her associates. It may do more." . . . But these ex- travagant fears were soon dissipated by our purchase of Louisiana, and we hear no more of dangers to us from French intervention.
CHAPTER VIII.
MR. DICKINSON IN PRIVATE AND DOMESTIC LIFE.
IT has been our aim to show in the preceding chap- ters how the influence of Mr. Dickinson as a political writer was in a great measure due to his advocacy at an opportune time of great ideas which seemed to meet the needs of an important crisis in the history of the country. The " Farmer's Letters" might have produced but little effect had they appeared when men were happy and contented with the system of govern- ment under which they lived. People would probably at such a time have taken but little interest in a series of treatises defending certain abstract propositions in regard to the relations between the metropolis and the Colonies. But when they appeared all men knew that a crisis had arrived, and they welcomed with extrava- gant joy the man who could best interpret its lessons. It has always been in this way, by a certain instinct of genius, that men who rule their fellows acquire their control over them. They know by a certain prescience when danger, which others have not perceived, is at hand ; they are bold enough to propose at once a remedy which their own minds have long brooded over in anticipation of the event, and they are strong and skilful enough to make those who listen to them feel that they have chosen the appropriate one for the emergency. This, fortunately for the fame of Mr. ' 302
DICKINSON'S INDEPENDENCE. 303
Dickinson, was the position he occupied nearly always in the political controversies of his time. Whether he was denouncing the tyrannical abuse of power in the enactment of the tax acts, or showing how resistance might be effectual and yet constitutional, or whether he was advocating with equal earnestness the policy of maintaining the political connection with Great Britain, because that connection, under constitutional restraints, was the surest guarantee of good government, his in- terposition seemed always opportune, and his motives for the course he advocated reasonable, in the opinion of those whom he sought to influence.
On such questions his position was always the same. He was never, as he said time and again, a volunteer writer. He wrote because he thought he had some- thing to say which would be useful to those who listened to him at a particular time, and because he felt earnestly that it was his duty to point out to his coun- trymen what seemed to him the only way out of the perils by which they were surrounded. His influence was due in a great measure to his reputation for inde- pendence. He was nbt, either in his party principles or in his social surrounding's, affiliated with those called
o '
" Proprietary men." Although he thought in 1764 that the government of the Penns, with all its evils, was, on the whole, to be preferred to a royal government under the direct control of the ministry, with none of the special privileges guaranteed by Penn's charter, yet he never held any office under the Penns, and certainly disapproved of much of their policy, especially that in regard to taxation and military service. The Penn family, indeed, had nothing to offer which could tempt
3°4 A QUAKER FAVORING DEFENSIVE WAR.
him from the independent position he occupied in the Province. He was not, as he is sometimes misrepre- sented, a stupid Tory, resisting any change which might be required in the political relations of the mother- country with the Colonies ; still less was he a blind ad- vocate of Proprietary government, but rather in many respects an English Constitutional Whig, who, while he believed that the monarchy under which he had been born was, on the whole, the best government which the wit of man had yet contrived, nevertheless felt that one of the great advantages of such a system was that it not only permitted but encouraged opposition to usur- pations of lawful authority, whether by the king or by the Parliament. He was not, strictly speaking, even a Quaker; for although of Quaker ancestry and bred in the customs of that society, he showed himself too large a man to be bounded in his opinions by their practices. As has been seen, he always advocated defensive warfare ; and although his opinions on this subject never, it is believed, made him amenable to their discipline, it is very clear that he did not hold the opinions of those gentle sectaries on this important point. In short, Mr. Dickinson was not, in the modern sense, in the least degree a revolutionist, and in all his acts he never showed any ambitious desire to place himself at the head of a revolutionary movement.
It was the general belief in his moral earnestness and his absolute independence which was the secret of his commanding influence. Men might disagree with him in the conclusions he reached concerning the proper course to be adopted, but no one could doubt his in- telligence or the depth and sincerity of his patriotic
HIS TRUSTWORTHINESS. 305
motives. There was nothing of the self-seeking modern politician about him, and hence we are presented with the curious spectacle in our political history of a man who, in a great crisis, was hardly in accord with any one of the party- leaders, yet who was nevertheless, to a certain extent, the guide of all parties, for oftentimes he was trusted by all. Mr. Dickinson was known, of course, to be opposed to an immediate Declaration of Independence, yet he was at that very time the man chosen by Congress to prepare such papers in anticipa- tion of the event as the Articles of Confederation and the form of treaties with foreign powers which it might be advisable to adopt. So when, three years after- wards, the fate of the war seemed to depend very much upon our making Spain our ally as well as France, Mr. Dickinson was called from his retirement in Delaware, sent by that State as a delegate to Con- gress, and there conducted, in conjunction with Mr. Jay, the most experienced man in foreign affairs then in Congress, the important negotiation which resulted in sending Jay as our Commissioner to Madrid in the autumn of 1779. It seems that in this resort to Mr. Dickinson's services there was a recognition not only of his ability as a diplomatist but also of his perfect independence and trustworthiness as a public man.
On the whole, then, although he had nothing to gain, and much to lose, personally, by the adoption of violent measures, yet it would seem to have been the general opinion of his contemporaries that his political course was not affected by considerations such as these. His large fortune, his family connections, and his profes- sional reputation no doubt helped to deepen the im-
20
3°<5 HJS DOMESTIC VIRTUES.
pression upon people of his perfect independence in urging the opinions which he had maintained as a stu- dent and as a lawyer, while they contributed to foster that sentiment of trust in him which is the indispensable condition of any one's success as a statesman.
Any sketch of Mr. Dickinson's career would be im- perfect which did not bring into prominent notice some of the characteristic traits of his private and domestic life. He conformed to that high standard of simplicity in manners and purity in morals which was not the least remarkable peculiarity of many prominent men of the Revolutionary era. Throughout his career he seems to have been a model of zeal and industry in the exemplary performance of the private as well as the public duties which devolved upon him. As a son, as a husband, as a devoted friend, he was loved and venerated by the innermost circle of those of whom he formed the central figure. His letters to his mother in his early manhood are characteristic of his temper throughout life. His mother had become a widow shortly before he had established himself in Philadel- phia, her husband having died in 1760. Of this lady, whose kind and unremitting care of him in his child- hood he never ceased to regard with the most grateful affection, Mrs. Deborah Logan says, " Mr. Dickinson's mother was Mary Cadwalader, daughter of John and Martha Cadwalader, of Merion, near Philadelphia. She was married to Samuel Dickinson on the 4th of No- vember, 1731, O. S. She was a distinguished woman, of fine understanding and graceful manners, and it is probable that he early imbibed from her a taste for literature, for her mind was well educated, and his
STRONG FAMILY FEELING. 3°7
education was domestic, the late Chief Justice Killen, of Delaware, having been his tutor. His proficiency in his studies filled the minds of his parents with delight, and was an anticipation of their future satisfaction in possessing such a son, for his filial attentions were most exemplary." Some of his letters to his mother, written after he had settled upon his course in life, are quite characteristic, and a few extracts from them may not be unwelcome.
John Dickinson to his Mother.
PHILADELPHIA, January 15, 1763.
HONORED MOTHER, — I should have been very happy in seeing my dear brother last Thursday was a week, if he had not informed me that you have got a cold. I must declare that apprehensions of your exposing yourself too much to the weather make me almost con- stantly uneasy. Let me entreat you to take the same tender care of yourself that you have always done of children too little deserving it. This will be infinitely the most grateful manner to them of your taking care of them. Preserve a life that will be a perpetual incite- ment of us to worthy actions. Preserve to us the highest delight that earth can afford us next to a sense of the Divine approbation, the inexpressible joy of a parent's applause.
May indulgent Providence grant me the blessing of rendering your life happy, and I shall believe I have not existed in vain.
I speak for the Fellow as well as myself, for he has an honest, gen- erous heart.
He is too much engaged to write, but desires his duty may be pre- sented. He is very hearty.
Same to Same.
September I4th, 1763.
HONORED MOTHER, — In answer to what you mention concerning the disposal of our family, I can only say that whatever is agreeable to you will be perfectly so to me. I believe our sentiments with respect to selling are the same. I would by no means approve of it
3°8 BECOMES A VISITOR AT FAIRHILL.
unless the people desire it. In such case I would sell, taking care to get them good masters.
If we sell, I think it would be proper to advertise, as prodigious prices are given in New Castle County and in this Province.
I should expect seventy or eighty pounds at least for women and children on an average.
I shall be quite happy when you are disencumbered from the fatigues of such a family and settled in peace and ease among your friends here. I think you will be much pleased with the situation and conveniences of this house. There is a fine open passage for the air backwards, a large, pleasant garden, and the rooms very good. I am charmed with the place ; so is Aunt Cadwalader ; and she says you will be so. Money flows in, and my vanity has been very agreeably flattered of late. I have not been so hearty these many years as I have been this summer ; quite free from the complaint in my breast and the headache.
********
I have sent a pound of fine powdered bark. Pray take care of your health. Do not fatigue yourself by all kinds of business, nor expose yourself in all kinds of weather. Prefer ease to everything. Your age and tenderness require it — demand it. You say, and I sincerely believe it, that your most anxious wish and prayer is for my brother's happiness and mine. Be assured, most honored mother, that the preservation of your own health will be the most effectual means to promote the happiness of your most dutiful and most affectionate son,
JOHN DICKINSON.
Mr. Dickinson had probably not been long a resident of Philadelphia without becoming a visitor at Fairhill, the country house of the venerable Speaker of the As- sembly, Isaac Morris. The Norris family at that time was among the most conspicuous and wealthy of the Quaker inhabitants. It had given to the public service two men, father and son, each bearing the same name, Isaac Norris, whose career in the Assembly of the Province for more than half a century had been identi- fied with its wonderful prosperity. Those were days
ISAAC NORRIS THE SPEAKER. 309
in which great confidence was placed in men in office whose large private estates seemed a guarantee of their interest in the good government of the country, and these two men were as widely known for their intelli- gence and probity as they were for their wealth and public spirit. They pursued, as leading members of the Assembly, a policy in the administration of Provin- cial affairs which made good government and Quaker government convertible terms. Isaac Norris the elder, who died in 1739, had been for many years prominent in public life. He had been Speaker of the Assembly many times, mayor of the city, chief justice of the Supreme Court, and at all times one of the leaders who shaped the policy of the Province.
Isaac Norris the younger (died 1769), or the Speaker, as he is commonly called, followed very much the same course as his father. He is known in the history of the Province for the efforts which he made to conduct the affairs of a populous community without sanctioning war or warlike measures. In advocating this policy he and his friends were forced to adopt a system of administration till then untried in any of the English colonies, namely, absolute humanity and justice in the treatment of the Indians and a continual protest against the doctrine that as an English colony Penn- sylvania should take an active part in the wars in which England might be involved, although as a Province it had no conceivable interest in their settlement. We may perhaps smile at the casuistry which they some- times employed to justify appropriations for warlike purposes when there was no escape from such a neces- sity. But, after all, their opposition taught them a
310 SYMPATHY WITH DICKINSON.
.
much broader philosophy than they dreamed of, and no one can read the proceedings of the Pennsylvania Assembly previous to and during the Revolution with- out observing how enlightened public sentiment here had become by the discussion of the nature and extent of the political rights of the Province in the Quaker Assemblies of which these two Norrises, father and son, had been so long leaders.
Another Colonial grievance which the Assembly was called upon to redress in his time was the obstinate pretension of the Penn family, as has been already explained, to an exemption from the common burden of taxation. Unanimously the Assembly had voted that this claim of exemption was unfounded in law or in equity,1 but the venerable Speaker and his young friend and colleague Dickinson were almost the only members of the Assembly who refused to believe that the condition of the Province would be improved by the remedy which was suggested, namely, the substitu- tion of a royal government for that of the Proprietary under the charter. When the Assembly had deter- mined to present a petition to the king, praying that such a change should be made, and Dr. Franklin and Mr. Norris were appointed to go to England and advocate its adoption, Mr. Norris felt that the time had arrived for his retirement from public life. He declined a re-election to the Assembly and refused the appointment of Commissioner to England.
Under these circumstances, bound together by a community of political opinion at least, Mr. Dickinson
1 Galloway's Resolutions of 1764.
LIFE AT FAIRHILL. 311
was no doubt a welcome visitor at Fairhill. He was, indeed, soon drawn there by a powerful attraction of a different kind. His host's family consisted of himself and his two daughters. To the elder of these ladies Mr. Dickinson soon became strongly attached.
It seems proper to give here some account of Fair- hill, not only as the place where the happiest days of Mr. Dickinson's life were passed, but as a typical country residence of that time, resembling many of the places in the neighborhood of the city, half farm and half country-seat, where such families among the Quaker aristocracy as the Logans, the Pembertons, the Cadwaladers, the Lloyds, the Whartons, the Fishers, and others passed the greater portion of their lives.
For this purpose we cannot do better than borrow the account of Mrs. Deborah Logan, who, from having been born and reared at Fairhill, was able to give a characteristic description of the house and its sur- roundings, as well as of the style of living maintained there :
"Fairhill, built by Isaac Norris upon the same plan as Dolobran (a seat from long antiquity possessed by the Lloyd family in Mont- gomeryshire, North Wales), at least as to the ground floor, was finished in 1717, and was at that time the most beautiful seat in Pennsylvania. The sashes for the windows and much of the best work were imported from England. The entrance was into a hall paved with black and white marble, two large parlors on each side, and an excellent staircase, well lighted. The courts and gardens were in the taste of those times, with gravel walks and parterres. Many lofty trees were preserved round the house, which added greatly to its beauty, and, at the time of my remembrance, the out-buildings were covered with festoons of ivy and scarlet bignonia. Isaac Norris had been very prosperous in trade, which at that period offered un- common facilities. His son Isaac Norris the Speaker succeeded his
312 SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
father in the possession of Fairhill, as he did in his talents, abilities, and public usefulness. As he was learned and fond of literature, he collected together a very good and extensive library. It was placed in a low building, consisting of several rooms, in the garden, and was a most delightful retreat for contemplative study ; the windows curtained with ivy; the sound of 'bees' industrious murmur' from a glass hive which had a communication from without, and where their wonderful instinct could be viewed. Beautiful specimens of the fine arts and many curiosities were also collected there, the shelves were filled with the best authors, and materials for writing and draw- ing at hand. In this place Isaac Norris the Speaker spent all the time that his health would permit which was not devoted to public business. He had lost an amiable wife after a few years of marriage (he married Sarah Logan J at Germantown, Wednesday, 4th day of the week, June 6, 1739). She left him two daughters, whose education he carefully superintended at home, and they grew up such women as realized his fondest wishes.
'* His house was kept by his eldest single sister Elizabeth, who was a woman of exemplary piety and virtue, of an affectionate, frank disposition, kind and hospitable in no common degree. A cousin of the Lloyd family constituted another member of his family. Her parents had been unfortunate, but she found at Fairhill an asylum like a father's house. She took the active part in the care of the family, knew how to prepare every delicacy for the table, and was uncommonly good-tempered and cheerful. Another inmate of this society, and who still lives, though in her ninetieth year, is the daughter of his sister Grifrltts, a woman of uncommon natural abil- ities, improved by reading and the conversation of her uncle, of sincere and ardent piety, and who held the ' pen of a ready writer. ' Her poetical pieces, though never collected, were sometimes pub- lished, and many of them had great merit.
"The family frequented a little meeting-house built on a lot of ground which William Penn had given to George Fox, which he bequeathed to the Society of Friends in Philadelphia. Close in the neighborhood of Fairhill, it was called after its name, and all the decent strangers who frequented it on a First-day morning (the only time on which it was held) were sure of an invitation to dine at that
1 Eldest child of James Logan.
HE MARRIES MARY N ORRIS. 3*3
hospitable mansion, where an excellent dinner and the kindest wel- come awaited them.
"When I said that the fondest wishes of Isaac Norris the Speaker with respect to his daughters were realized, I meant a great enco- mium, for no man had higher ideas of female excellence than him- self. To describe more particularly : my cousin Mary (Mrs. Dick- inson) had a very sweet and benevolent expression of countenance, a solid judgment, good sense, a most affectionate disposition, the tenderest sensibility of heart, and elevated piety. The love that subsisted between herself and her sister was such a perfect union of hearts that they both seemed to be actuated but by one soul. Sally was nearly four years younger than Mary, and so beautiful and of such an uncommon character that I am fearful the language of truth will be thought that of panegyrick. . . .
" Charles Norris died January 15, 1766. Isaac Norris the Speaker, who was many years older and in infirm health, did not long survive the shock, but followed his brother in about six months.
" He was born the 23d of October, 1701, about seven in the even- ing, at Sam Carpenter's house in the bank, the 5th day of the week, and died at Fairhill, July 13, 1766. He made no will, but left his daughters heiresses to a very large fortune. After his decease they fulfilled all his intentions by settlements and legacies, and by a deed of gift entailed the great estates of Fairhill and Sepviva upon my brothers as heirs male of the family.
" Sarah Norris died the 24th of June, 1769, of the small-pox. . . . The grief of her sister was indescribable, and produced a deep and settled gloom upon her mind which her friends feared would termi- nate in entire melancholy.
"At last a most accomplished gentleman who had long loved her, who had possessed her father's esteem and her sister's kindness, but who had in her sister's lifetime received a respectful rejection from her, again renewed his suit, and was more successful. This was the excellent John Dickinson, Esq. His character will long be remem- bered by the wise and good and held in deserved estimation by his grateful country. (Mary Norris married J. Dickinson July 19, 1770.)
"They had not long been married and settled at Fairhill, where they lived in great elegance, when the threatening cloud which had for several years hovered over these, then, colonies, became more
THOMSON SECRETARY OF CONGRESS.
dense, and was apparently filled with the lightning of royal and par- liamentary vengeance.
11 The part which my cousin Dickinson took in the struggle is well known. It became necessary fully to ascertain the sentiments of the people in the interior of the Province before a daring opposition could be made by those on the sea-coast and the calling of a general Congress determined on. For this purpose a party of pleasure was devised : Hannah Harrison (afterwards the wife of Charles Thomson) accompanied her cousin Mary Dickinson ; and Charles Thomson, his friend John Dickinson, General Mifflin, and his pleasing wife, were likewise of the party.1
" What was then called the interior did not go beyond Reading, Bethlehem, Lancaster, York, and Carlisle. The travellers found the public sentiment favorable to their purpose.
"On second day1 after Charles Thomson and Hannah Harrison were married he came to Philadelphia with an intention of paying his respects to my mother, as the near relation of his bride ; but he had scarce alighted when he heard himself accosted by the door- keeper (or a messenger) of Congress, then just convened for the first time in Philadelphia, who informed him that they requested his im- mediate attendance. He followed the messenger into a building near at hand (the Carpenters' hall, now the custom-house) where they held their first session, and, advancing in front of this truly august assembly, he bowed and awaited their pleasure. When the Speaker informed him that Congress requested his services as their secretary, he immediately took his seat at the table ; nor did he, having put his hand to the plough, ever look back. His heart was in the cause, and he continued in this station of unremitting fatigue and re- sponsibility till the perilous war was ended, and the sun of empire, emerging from its troubled waves, grew into broad refulgence and
1 I have heard that in most of the other States influential characters made sim- ilar experiments on the situation of the public mind. In Pennsylvania it was proper to know how the Germans would act. The party made a/Me in the woods near Reading, to which many of the farmers were invited, who assured them that their countrymen were almost unanimous in the cause. One old man said that his father had fled from great oppression in Germany, and on his death-bed charged his sons to defend the liberties they enjoyed in this country, if it should be necessary, with their lives.
1 Monday.
THE NORRIS FAMILY. 315
dissipated with its invigorating beams the mists of error and confu- sion. But, before this was effected, the situation of the good people of these States was hazardous and doubtful in the extreme; pri- vations were endured, scenes of anxiety and alarm as well as actual suffering were witnessed and experienced, which, contrasted with our former ease and security, were certainly hard to bear. At different periods of the war expectations of the approach of the enemy's army towards Philadelphia caused all that had been active in oppo- sition to seek safety in flight, and both Fairhill and Summerville1 were abandoned by their inhabitants, neither of the families ever returning to inhabit them again, for Fairhill2 was burned to the ground by the depredations of the British forces when possessed of Philadelphia, and Summerville, though left standing, was but little better than a ruin.
The circle to which the Norris family belonged was a somewhat exclusive one, as those of their own re- ligious and political principles formed something of a caste in Provincial society. These families were usu- ally wealthy, according to the standard of those days, but, retaining the strict principles of the Friends, they were profuse in their hospitality, and lived without ostentation. They had very decided opinions, how- ever, about what was becoming their station, and we read in Mr. Adams's Diary of his having been visited by Mr. Dickinson " in his carriage and four beautiful horses," and "that his residence was very fine, with its
1 Residence of Charles Thomson after his second marriage. The property belonged to Mrs. Harrison through the kindness of Isaac Norris the Speaker.
2 Fairhill and sixteen other seats and houses in the vicinity of the city were fired. It was alleged that persons concealed in these houses fired on the English pickets. A person who was present at head-quarters heard Colonel Twistleton (afterwards Lord Say and Sele) exultingly tell General Howe that he had burned
that d rebel Dickinson's house, meaning Fairhiil. Galloway, who was also
there, told him he was mistaken, that Mr. Dickinson had indeed resided there, but it was the property of a minor. . . . Fairhill was burned November 22, 1777. The interference of Galloway, it was said, prevented any more orders to burn houses.
775 PUBLIC SERVICES.
beautiful prospect of the city, the river, the country, fine gardens, and a very grand library," etc.
This family was a type of many which had risen to wealth and importance during the first half of the eighteenth century. During that period the excellence of its soil, the variety of its productions, and its ex- tensive commerce had made Pennsylvania the most prosperous of all the English settlements in America. As the inhabitants grew in wealth their ideal type of civilization and culture may not have been, according to our present standard, a very lofty one, yet it must not be forgotten that the true governor of the Province during that time was James Logan, the most learned man in America outside the theological domain. Frank- lin followed in his footsteps, and in 1743 felt sufficient encouragement to found here public institutions which still exist and flourish, and which were designed to pro- mote useful and experimental knowledge, such as the "Junto," the parent and forerunner of the American Philosophical Society, the Public Library, and the Col- lege of Philadelphia. Isaac Norris, inheriting from his father-in-law, James Logan, a library of extraordinary value, enlarged its treasures, and passed on to his son- in-law, John Dickinson, that key of knowledge which enabled him to unlock for the benefit of the suffering Colonies the secrets of state-craft.
Mr. Dickinson was married to Miss Mary Norris, as stated by Mrs. Logan in her narrative, on the igth of July, 1770. On this occasion two of his characteristic traits, his independence and his contempt for the vulgar display common at weddings in those days, became, according to tradition, conspicuous.
DICKINSON MARRIES MISS MARY NORRIS. 3' 7
William Logan (the son of James) writes to his brother-in-law, John Smith, of Burlington, under date of July 20, 1770, "Should this be the first account thou receivest, thou wilt be greatly surprised to hear that our niece, Polly Norris, was married last night to John Dickinson. Polly informed my brother James of it last First Day, when he was at Fairhill, but enjoined the strictest secrecy. He and wife were asked to the wedding. She went, but not Jemmy. She was mar- ried at the Widow Norris's by George Bryan (one of the magistrates). Very few present. John Dickin- son's mother and his brother, Dr. Cadwalader, wife, and his son Lambert, Hannah Harrison, and some of Sam. Morris's children, with my sister Logan, were the chief. I am greatly concerned for the example Polly has set by this her outgoing in marriage." (Re- ferring to her not having been married at the Friends* Meeting.) " I fear she has slipped from the top of the hill of the reputation she had gained in the Society and among her friends, and that it will be a long time before she gains it again, if ever. I wish she may not repent it."
Mr. Dickinson's modest shrinking from public notice on such an occasion has not, unfortunately, many imi- tators in these days. In anticipation of his marriage he wrote to the publishers of every newspaper in this city the following note :
" GENTLEMEN, — I earnestly entreat as a favor of great weight with me that you will not insert in your newspaper any other account of my marriage than this : ' Last Thursday, John Dickinson, Esquire, was married to Miss Mary Norris.' An account of the expressions of joy shown on the occasion will give me inexpressible pain, and very great uneasiness to a number of very worthy relations.
HIS CHARACTERISTIC MODESTY.
No doubt Mr. Dickinson's good taste, as well as his sensibility, was shocked by the prospect of being forced to pass the ordeal usual on the occasion of a public marriage in those days. No wonder he disliked the house of the parents filled with company at dinner, the company remaining to tea and to supper, punch dealt out with profusion for two days, the gentlemen escorting the groom to his chamber, where they all, sometimes a hundred in number, claimed the privilege of " kissing the bride." No wonder he revolted at vulgarity like this. These are small matters, but they indicate a cer- tain delicacy and propriety which were characteristic of the man.1
1 Two more instances of his characteristic modesty may be given. He was asked in the latter part of his life for a copy of the ad- dress made to him by the Schuylkill Fishing Club concerning the " Farmer's Letters." The following is his answer :
" I have no copy of the address of the St. David's Society and answer ; and if I had, I should be sorry to see them republished. The address was the act of a private club of friends. The approbation exceeded all bounds of propriety. It ought not to have been pub- lished ; and, when it was, drew upon me a charge of vanity, from which I hope my heart is free ; but there was an indelicacy in its appearance that wounded my mind, and for which, in my opinion, the regret of a whole life cannot sufficiently atone."
The other is addressed to an artist, who desired to paint his portrait, to be placed in a picture of the Declaration of Indepen- dence :
" SIR, — I have again considered your very earnest and obliging request that you may draw my picture in your piece representing the Declaration of Independence, and am much concerned that I find myself compelled to adhere to my former opinion.
"As for my ' then being a member of Congress,' it was an acci- dental circumstance. As to the ' advantages I have procured you for executing your plan of painting the illustrious scenes of the late
HIS GENEROUS SELF-SACRIFICE. 3*9
No marriage, as we shall see, ever proved a truer union. In all the vicissitudes of a life checkered by various fortunes, in triumph or in disaster, whether he was suffering under misrepresentations of his acts and motives, or whether he was at last vindicated, honored, and revered, his wife was always his helpmate and best friend. He willingly sacrificed his own private inter- ests to enable her to do honor to the memory of her father ; and in all the benevolent acts which distin- guished the latter part of his life particularly, she gladly joined her husband in making the contributions which endowed them. The following letters, the one written two months after his marriage, and the other some years later, amidst all the anxieties and uncertainties of the Revolutionary War, seem to me to give a very
Revolution,' respect for the State, for the Union, and for the arts commanded me to procure them. As for ' the reflections that may be made upon the omission,' I shall not care for them, because they will be unjust.
" The truth is, that, as I opposed making the Declaration of Inde- pendence at the time it was made, I cannot be guilty of so false an ambition as to seek for any share in the fame of that council.
"Enough it will be for me should my name be remembered by posterity, if it is acknowledged that I cheerfully staked everything dear to me upon the fate of my country, and that no measure, how- ever contrary to my sentiments, no treatment, however unmerited, could, even in the deepest gloom of our affairs, change that determi- nation, and that though I resigned the favors of my fellow-citizens by endeavoring, as I judged, to promote their happiness, I continued inflexibly attached to their cause.
" I have the honor to be, with great esteem, sir, your most obe- dient humble servant,
"JOHN DICKINSON.
" PHILADA., July, 1785.
"ROBERT E. PINE, ESQ."
320 FAMILY LETTERS.
pleasant picture of his domestic happiness at different periods :
John Dickinson to Mrs. Mary Norris.
MY DEAR AUNT, — We arrived here yesterday at dusk, pretty well tired and in pretty good spirits. Tuesday we dined with your worthy tenant at Norrington, who, with his wife, gave us a very kind recep- tion. That night we got to the Yellow Springs. We brought some of the water away with us, but Polly complains that it makes her eyes smart, so that I believe she will not use it any more.
Yesterday we set off for this place. Part of the way afforded us most delightful prospects, with which my dear companion was ex- tremely pleased. Some part of the road was hilly, crooked, stony, stumpy. She bore all the jolts like a philosopher. We dined at Pottsgrove, and among " memorable things" it may be put down as one, that after proper respect paid to a beefsteak, somebody desired an egg to be poached. Cousin H. may add as another remarkable fact that yesterday completed two months of marriage without one quarrel.
We are in good quarters here, and therefore have stopt here this day; I can't say rested, for at one we went in the carriage about half-way up a mountain (some people call it a hill) near this town, but the road becoming very rough, we undertook the remainder of the jaunt on foot. Steep and stony the ascent, — a mere type of a virtuous life, and that, everybody knows, is grievous enough to our frail natures for a while, but most charming to the happy folks who persevere to the top. In this the similitude still held, for when we had clambered up to a great height a mere Paradise presented itself to our eyes. We wished for you, Cousin H., and Cousin H. G. to enjoy the prospect, the last to describe it. When we return we will be more particular ; at present we cannot, for though I verily believe it is as high and as pleasant as Parnassus, yet we did not find a single Muse sauntering upon it.
To-morrow we proceed for Carlisle, which I expect to reach on Saturday. I told Polly my design to go there to-day. She cheer- fully consented. In short, she is a most excellent traveller. With her every disagreeable thing in travelling is tolerable, and everything not disagreeable is pleasing.
She is now lolling, and I am writing in a great hurry, every
FAMILY LETTERS. 321
moment expecting a gentleman, who left his compliments while I was out, and promised to call again.
Please to present my love to all at Fairhill, Somerville, and Bell- ville, and to your dear little [blank]. My Polly presents her love to you and all those just mentioned.
I am, my dear aunt,
Your very affectionate nephew
And most obedient servant. READING, Septr. 2oth, 1770.
Polly desires this letter may be sent forward to Bellville. Witness her hand the day and year aforesaid. J. D.
MY EVER DEAR POLLY, — I arrived in Philadelphia this day was a week, about one o'clock, very hearty, after a very pleasant journey, and am truly sorry I cannot return to you and our precious one as soon as I intended. Business prevents me. I have settled a great deal, and expect shortly to settle the rest to my highest satisfaction. But this and all the kindness of our friends here, which seems to re- vive and expand with the spring, cannot compensate for absence from those in Kent, whom I so tenderly love. I propose to be at home about the end of this month. You may be assured I will not stay a moment longer than is necessary. I am so selfish as almost to wish the time may be as tedious to you as to me ; though I am afraid, to wish that, would be too cruel. However, if the pleasure of meeting is proportioned to the anxiety of separation, perhaps it would not be very unkind. For my part, I believe there is some such sort of a proportion. I will trust to our prudence while distant, and to our hearts when we meet.
Not to part too suddenly, though, from the subject, give my most affectionate love to our little one. Tell her from papa to be very good ; to be sure to say her prayers morning and evening, and take care of herself, which I also earnestly entreat her mamma. Make as many visits as you can, but never stay out so late as to get home after dark. I beg you to observe this my request, and tell Jo to rival Joseph in carefulness of driving. My compliments to Miss Polly and Mr. Ridgely. I hope they will be so obliging as to entertain you. Keep up your spirits. Heaven, through its infinite goodness, may have more happiness in store for you in this world than you have any prospect of. Let us strive to render ourselves as little unworthy
21
322 PUBLIC OFFICE A TRUST.
as possible of favors received or to be received. You can imagine how I have been visited and invited. Kind inquiries, etc., etc. But the budget must not be opened till the meeting of the three States. Ask Sally if that expression is not a riddle, and let her in- genuity be exerted to solve it. I must think of leaving off, for my paper is almost finished. In answer to the Athenian question, if you are inclined to ask it, there is nothing worth mentioning. If you hear anything, do not believe it, unless it is agreeable. That every- thing in this life may be so to you, if it may be without prejudicing you in another, is, my love, as warm a wish as ever glowed in the heart of
Your affectionate
JOHN DICKINSON. PHILADELPHIA, May ipth, 1781.
Mr. Dickinson, having been happily married in 1770, and occupying a high position as a lawyer, and having gained a reputation which placed him as a political writer at the head of the opponents of the ministry, would, had he been the timid politician he is sometimes represented, have retired, for the time at least, from the political arena. He had no fondness for the excitement of the struggle, and he was not long in discovering that he had taken the unpopular side. It became more and more apparent every day that revolutionary passions which he could not control would sooner or later drag the country into a position in which, according to his theory, he could not defend her. But this discovery neither changed his convictions nor led him to deviate from the path he had marked out for himself. Every one, of course, is entitled to his own judgment as to the wisdom of his political opinions and acts, but no one who watches his career can doubt the courage, the sincerity, and the disinterestedness with which he main- tained them. He was not spoiled by the flattery with
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN DEL A WARE. 323
which his Farmer's Letters had been received, and he probably was not greatly surprised when he found his wise and temperate counsels so soon forgotten. Pre- vious to the Declaration of Independence he must have felt that he was leading the "forlorn hope" of the American Revolution, but when independence was determined upon he at once became as sincere and earnest an advocate and defender of the country in its new conditions as he had been in its old. He was no " Achilles, sulking in his tent," no mere student look- ing with cynical contempt alike upon the aspirations and the errors of those who differed with him and re- fused to follow his advice or example. To men of the fine temper of Dickinson, action is essential when duty calls. He followed no leader at any time but his con- science, and that pointed to the thorny path in which he was beset by popular abuse and misconception. Esse quam videri was his family motto, and the senti- ment which it embodied guided him through life.
Mr. Dickinson's humanity and philanthropy were ex- hibited shortly after his return to Delaware, in 1785, by his strenuous advocacy of a measure for the abolition of slavery in that State. He had himself been a slave- holder in his early days, but, like many slave-holders of that period, his experience had only taught him more clearly the necessity, on every ground, of ridding the State of such an incubus. The journals of the As- sembly of Delaware tell us that leave was given in October, 1785, for the introduction of a bill for the gradual abolition of slavery, and that such a bill was presented in the following January, was carefully con- sidered, and then was replaced by a bill for furthering
324 SLAVERY IN THE NEW TERRITORIES.
emancipation, which, in turn, was deferred in June for consideration, which it seems never to have received. (See Jameson's "Essays on the Constitutional History of the United States," p. 300.)
Among Mr. Dickinson's papers was found a copy of a draft of a bill of the character referred to. (See Appendix VIII.) It may have been one of the many propositions which were not at that time uncommon among far-seeing statesmen in the Southern States, preparing the way for a general emancipation of the slaves. Be that as it may, the horror of perpetuating slavery grew deeper and stronger with Mr. Dickinson as he advanced in years. Here is a letter, written in 1804, protesting against the introduction of slavery into the newly-acquired territories :
John Dickinson to George Logan, Senator in Congress.
MY DEAR COUSIN, — Thy letter of the i8th, with the inclosure, is received.
As Congress is now to legislate for our extensive territory lately acquired, I pray to Heaven that they may build up the system of the government on the broad, strong, and sound principles of freedom. Curse not the inhabitants of those regions, and of the United States in general, with a permission to introduce bondage.
Slaves are deeply, deeply injurious to the morals of the masters and their families, and are internal enemies always to be watched and guarded against.
As standing armies are justly abhorred among us, our liberty must depend on our being an armed nation ; and considering the power of those with whom we may have to contend, we must be a populous nation.
The labor of slaves must in a certain proportion exclude the cul- tivation of the earth by freemen, and thereby diminish our internal safety and external security.
PROJECTS OF BENEVOLENCE. 325
The theme is inexhaustible. Let the pernicious project, the detestable precedent, never be sanctioned by votes of sons of liberty.
I am thy truly affectionate kinsman,
JOHN DICKINSON. WILMINGTON, the 3oth of the First Month, 1804.
We should form, however, a very inadequate con- ception of Mr. Dickinson's character and influence and of his well-rounded life did we confine ourselves merely to a review of his career as a statesman. He seems to have been deeply impressed, as was Franklin, in his early life, with the great destiny which the future had in reserve for his country. Amidst all his anxieties and labors for the establishment here of political institutions suited to our condition, he never ceased his efforts for the encouragement and support of those voluntary associations for the promotion of education and charity which form the true strength and glory of free States. He well knew that such associations in a country like this must be the outgrowth of private benevolence and enterprise, and that they must depend upon the State for encouragement only, and not for complete support. He was one of the first in this country to perceive how vast a development it was possible to give to this voluntary system as a means of promoting the work of education and benevolence. From the close of the Revolution he showed the greatest zeal in strengthening the hands of those benevolent persons who were engaged in work of this kind. In 1782 he gave to the College of New Jersey, at Princeton, one hundred pounds, the income of which was to be per- petually appropriated as a prize for the best essay
326 DICKINSON COLLEGE.
prepared by a student of the college upon one of sev- eral topics, political and social, which he designated. In 1783 a strong effort was made by several enlightened men in the State to establish a college west of the Sus- quehanna. The need of a provision for the supply of a liberal education to young men in the western part of this State was then indeed very apparent, and had impressed itself strongly upon those who best knew its value. Among these men Mr. Dickinson and Dr. Rush were the most conspicuous. The special cause which awakened public interest on this subject at that time was no doubt the deplorable condition into which col- lege education in this State had fallen after the Revo- lution. The old College of Philadelphia, which had during twenty years gained a high reputation, was (as we have seen) robbed of its endowments in 1779 by an act of the Legislature, under the false pretext that its management was sectarian. The new establishment to which its endowments were transferred, the " Uni- versity of the State of Pennsylvania," although its resources were increased by the State bounty, never secured either public confidence or support during its short-lived career. Such was the opportunity seized upon by the friends of college education to establish a new college. Accordingly, in September, 1783, Dick- inson College, at Carlisle, was incorporated. It was called " Dickinson College," we are told in the pream- ble of the act by which it was chartered, " in memory of the great and important services rendered to his country by His Excellency John Dickinson, Esquire, President of the Supreme Executive Council, and in commemoration of his very liberal donation to the
CONTRIBUTIONS TO CHARITIES,
institution." Very large contributions (for that day) were made by many prominent men in the State, of all shades of party and religious feeling, but that of Mr. Dickinson was the largest of all. He gave the college two plantations, as they were called, one of three hun- dred acres, in Adams County, and the other of two hundred acres, in Cumberland. He also presented to the college library the books which were saved from the burning of the Norris library at Fairhill by the British army in 1777, amounting in number to about fifteen hundred volumes. If we are right in ascribing the training and knowledge of political principles which distinguished two generations of the Norris family, as well as that of Mr. Dickinson himself, in a great meas- ure to the wealth of learning contained in those books, that gift to the college must have been a priceless one. Mr. Dickinson continued to be president of the Board of Trustees during the remainder of his life, and the col- lege was in constant receipt of his benefactions. He became the intimate friend of its first president, the Rev. Dr. Nisbet, a Scotch Presbyterian clergyman of rare ability, and aided greatly in his support by an annuity which he granted him.
In 1786 he and his wife (and she seems to have been always associated with him in his benevolent under- takings) gave to the Monthly Meeting of Friends in Wilmington two hundred pounds, to facilitate the edu- cation of poor children and the children of those not in affluent circumstances, without any distinction of religious profession.
In the same year he writes to his cousin James Pem- berton, one of the elders of the Society of Friends,
328 RELIEF OF SICK PRISONERS.
" My mind has been frequently and deeply concerned in observing how very negligent I have been in doing good, and has been particularly engaged in a desire of attending to the duties of humanity so strongly dic- tated by reason and conscience, and the performance of which is so remarkably enjoined by our Saviour as indispensably necessary. At present my intention is to make provision for the relief of those poor who may be 'sick and in prison,' under the direction of Friends in Philadelphia." For that purpose he sends him two hundred pounds. " One objection," he adds characteristically, " respecting myself has given me pain. Acts of this sort ought to be done in secret. But I am convinced that the benefits will be much fur- ther extended under the management of Friends than by any personal efforts or private regulations which it is in my power to make ; and perhaps its establishment, once begun, may stir up others to contribute to its promotion. Above all, I humbly trust that I am moved to this proceeding by a love of my Maker and of my fellow-creatures, and that He in His mercy will pardon the imperfection of its execution."
It may be said that this benevolent project was not undertaken by the Friends as a society, and that the fund was consequently transferred to a society then newly created, which still does its benevolent work, composed of the most charitable persons of all the denominations in the city, called "The Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons."
But the benevolent enterprise which at that time Mr. Dickinson and his wife had most at heart seems to have been the establishment of a free boarding-school
PROPOSES A QUAKER BOARDING-SCHOOL. 3*9
under the care of Friends. In 1789 he offered to the Yearly Meeting of Friends in Philadelphia a consider- able sum towards the endowment of a school under their care, in which the pupils should be instructed in " the most advantageous branches of literature" and in certain practical subjects. The Meeting for a number of years hesitated to assume this trust, partly owing to doubts of the possibility of raising among its members a sufficient sum to complete the endowment, and partly because some of them doubted the wisdom and ex- pediency of undertaking, as a religious body, to en- courage too much the acquisition of worldly learning by their young people. Mr. Dickinson's proposition led to a long correspondence between himself and the authorities of the Meeting upon the relations of learn- ing to religion. In these letters he maintained with great force what are now to all self-evident truths, but what in those days were new and unwelcome doctrines to many sincere religionists. The result was that he finally convinced the Meeting of the wisdom and pro- priety of the measure he had proposed, and in 1794 the Yearly Meeting agreed to establish the school at West-town, which still flourishes, and the benefaction of Mr. Dickinson and his wife was transferred to that body towards its support.
As a curious illustration of the character of the obstacles which, a hundred years ago, a proposition to extend popular education met with, it is worth while to transcribe a portion of one of Mr. Dickinson's letters on this subject :
"I wish to be well understood on this interesting business, and therefore beg leave to insert part of a
330 RELATIONS OF RELIGION AND LEARNING.
letter written on behalf of my wife and myself to cousin James Pemberton at the beginning of the last year : ' Another trust we earnestly desire to commit to the care of Friends, and that is, a permanent pro- vision for the proper education of poor orphan children. A temporary or uncertain relief in the manner pro- posed to us may be in some degree beneficial, but where a regular attention is had to the mind as well as to the body there seem to be better prospects of advantage to the individual and to the public. We are inclined to think that these views would be most effect- ually promoted by some establishment in the country similar to that at Glaucka, near Halle, in Saxony, or to that at Ackworth, in England. We have not, however, any decided opinion as to the mode, being very desirous of receiving information. Our ideas at present are that the objects should be ascertained, and the whole plan, with regard to situation, buildings, and other particulars, so regulated that every needless expense may be avoided/ . .
" Some worthy persons slight learning too much because wonderful acts have been done by illiterate men. It should be always recollected that these men were particularly called and qualified for particular purposes. No general inference can be justly drawn from such instances. So assured am I that learning and religion will be found to agree together, that I think it the indispensable duty of those who revere religion to cultivate learning in order to counteract the mischiefs flowing from its perversions and apply it to its proper use. Hypotheses or counterfeits, substituted in the place of truths, have done irreparable injury, and
FAIRHILL AND SEPVIVA ENTAILED. 33*
by these vanities the world is still deluded. ' Foolish questions,' fables, and endless genealogies, profane and vain babblings, oppositions of science falsely so called, and winds of doctrine the apostle Paul has justly con- demned, and these, to be sure, should be consigned to perpetual oblivion."
There was another act of Mr. Dickinson's (in anti- cipation of his marriage) which showed him to possess the unselfish nature of a thoroughbred gentleman, and confirmed the general impression of the nobleness and generosity of his character. Miss Mary Norris was, after the death of her sister, the sole surviving child and heiress of Isaac Norris the Speaker, who had died without making a will. He left considerable personal property and two adjoining estates on the borders of the city, called " Fairhill" and "Sepviva," containing between six and seven hundred acres. These estates became, of course, absolutely vested in Miss Norris by operation of law. They were even then of great value, and it was perfectly well understood by Mr. Dickinson and by all concerned that, owing to their nearness to the city, they would produce in the course of time a princely revenue to their owners, an antici- pation, we may say, which has been fully justified by the result. Miss Norris was convinced that it had been the wish and intention of her father that these estates should be preserved as long as possible in the male line of the Norris family, and that his intention had been defeated by his sudden and unexpected death. By her and by her intended husband this inten- tion was regarded as a sacred obligation, having for them the same force as a legal duty. They accordingly
332 DICKINSON'S DECLINING YEARS.
joined in a deed, in 1769, conveying these estates in tail-male to the sons of Charles Norris, the brother of the Speaker, reserving to Mrs. Dickinson the power to designate one of his sons as tenant-in-tail. In 1790 she appointed Joseph Parker Norris as tenant-in-tail, and he soon afterwards, by a process well known to lawyers, called a common recovery, became the owner of these estates in fee simple.
The excuse for this reference to a matter of private family history is that it serves as an illustration of the lofty principles of right by which at all times Mr. Dickinson's life was guided. Acts such as these, both as to the motive which prompted them and the self- denial which they involved, reveal the character of the man both in private and in public life.1
The declining years of Mr. Dickinson's life were passed in a dignified retirement, in which he had all the satisfactions which can surround a serene old age, — "honor, love, obedience, troops of friends." To all he seemed a Christian philosopher, his heart full of love of his country to the last, and wholly free from the arts of the restless politician, who seeks to gain selfish ends by unworthy means. He never ceased to manifest his deep interest in public affairs, and his cor-
1 Mr. Dickinson's town-house, before the Revolution, was in Chest- nut Street, below Seventh. It had been originally the Carpenter Mansion, and was afterwards occupied by Dr. Graeme and his daughter, Mrs. Ferguson. Mr. Dickinson moved into it in 1774. It was used in the early part of the Revolution as a hospital, and afterwards was occupied by the French minister, who gave there a famous entertainment to the officers of the allied armies. Later it was the residence of Chief-Justice Tilghman, and still later the "Arcade" was built on the site.
CONSTANT INTEREST IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS. 333
respondence with Mr. Jefferson and with his kinsman Dr. George Logan, at that time one of the Senators from Pennsylvania, shows how his counsel was valued by them and how readily men in power trusted to his experience as a guide. Happily for Mr. Dickinson's repose, the dangers to his country which he had appre- hended from the ambitious designs of France were averted for the time by the " happy accident" of the willingness of Napoleon to sell to us the vast terri- tory of Louisiana, and with it all the French claims to territorial possessions on this continent. Napoleon was in the zenith of his power when Mr. Dickinson died, and, although no man looked with greater horror on his schemes of universal conquest, yet Mr. Dickinson could feel that we had at least escaped the calamities with which the progress of the French arms had over- whelmed western Europe.
He lost his wife in 1803, and although this affliction can be rightly measured only by those who know what his married life was, still, one of its results which was very apparent was the increased tenderness of his sympathies for those who were suffering and needed his aid. Among other illustrations of his genuine kind- ness and generosity, we may venture to speak of his conduct towards the family of Chief-Justice Read, who died leaving his family in a somewhat dependent con- dition. The Chief-Justice and Mr. Dickinson had been friends in boyhood. They had been students together in the same law-office in Philadelphia, and for nearly fifty years of life together in most stormy times their friend- ship had never wavered nor been diminished. Immedi- ately upon the death of Judge Read, Mr. Dickinson sent
334 GIFT TO JUDGE READ'S FAMILY.
his widow a deed conveying to her a valuable farm in Delaware, which might serve as a home for the family and aid in the support of those members of it who were unable to help themselves. Well may the son of the Chief- Justice (who was his father's biographer) say of Mr. Dickinson, of whom he was one of the bene- ficiaries, " I have a vivid impression of the man, tall and spare, his hair white as snow, his face uniting with the severe simplicity of his sect a neatness and elegance peculiarly in keeping with it ; his manners a beautiful emanation of the great Christian principle of love, with that gentleness and affectionateness which, what- ever may be the cause, the Friends, or at least individ- uals among them, exhibit more than others, combining the politeness of a man of the world familiar with society in its most polished forms with conventional canons of behavior. Truly he lives in my memory as the realization of my beau-ideal of a gentleman."
To this may be added the impressions of one who knew him well (Mrs. Deborah Logan), and who seems at all times to have regarded him with the utmost affec- tion and veneration :
"I have spoken of his eloquence, but it is not easy to do justice to the charms of his conversation, nor to the many excellent qualities and virtues that adorned his life. His mind was a rich casket of all the various knowledge which history contains, for he had read the most, and brought his judgment to bear upon his read- ing the best, of any person that I ever knew, and he would, in his instructive converse, draw from this casket the ample stores which it contained in such a fit and beautiful setting of words that the minds of his
M£S. DEBORAH LOGAN'S SKETCH. 335
auditors followed him with unmixed delight: a high intellectual gratification indeed !
" But there were so many useful and pleasing traits in his character that I cannot yet stop my pen. He was a true republican, sincerely attached to the free institutions of our country, simple and unostentatious in his habits and manners, claiming no pre-eminence over his fellow-citizens, but remarkably kind and atten- tive to his poorest neighbors and acquaintance, dif- fusing all the help and comfort and blessing in his power to those around him, his whole conduct being a practical comment upon the divine truths of religion with which his mind was deeply imbued. I never visited him but I thought myself in some sort better, and my love for whatever was good and excellent was revived and strengthened.
" Some are fond of showing the acuteness of their intellect by readily detecting in the conversation and writings of others whatever is faulty or susceptible of ridicule ; he, on the contrary, disliked to look at faults, unless the interest of virtue or a correct taste required their exposure, but was delighted to set in the fairest point of view the beauties and excellencies which came under his observation. His person and manners were eminently graceful and pleasing, and fair indeed would rise the edifice of human society, if, planned and proportioned like the rectitude of his mind, all its columns were adorned with capitals of the order to which he belonged. It might justly be said of him as it was of Fenelon, that 'Virtue herself became more beautiful from his manner of being vir- tuous/
336 MR. DICKINSON'S DEATH.
In February, 1808, Mr. Dickinson was prostrated by a fever, which it was soon seen must prove fatal to one of his advanced years. During his last illness his mind seemed constantly to dwell upon the terrible sac- rifice of life with which the great Continental wars of that period were attended, and upon the danger to his own country if it should be exposed to similar calamities. Almost his last words were, " I wish happiness to all mankind, and the blessings of peace to all the nations of the earth, and these are the constant subjects of my prayers." He died on the I4th of February, 1808, having nearly reached his seventy-seventh year. He was buried in the graveyard attached to the meeting- house in Wilmington, and his grave, as is the custom among Friends, is marked by a simple head-stone only.
When the news of his death reached Washington, both houses of Congress, then in session, adopted reso- lutions recalling his services during the Revolution and lamenting his death as a national loss. Mr. Jefferson, then President, wrote the following letter to a friend of Mr. Dickinson who had sent him intelligence of his death :
" WASHINGTON, Feb. 24, 1808.
"SiR, — I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 1 6th ; it gave me the first information of the death of our distinguished fellow-citizen, John Dickinson. A more estimable man or truer patriot could not have left us. Among the first of the advocates for the rights of his country when assailed by Great Britain, he con- tinued to the last the orthodox advocate of the true principles of our new government, and his name will be consecrated in history as one of the great worthies of the Revolution. We ought to be grate- ful for having been permitted to retain the benefit of his counsel to so good an old age; still the moment of losing it, whenever it arrives, must be a moment of deep-felt regret. For himself perhaps
MR. JEFFERSON'S LETTER. 337
a longer period of life was less important, alloyed as the feeble en- joyments of that age are with so much pain ; but to his country, every addition to his moments was interesting. A junior companion of his labors in the early part of our Revolution, it has been a great comfort to me to have retained his friendship to the last moments of his life. Sincerely condoling with his friends on this affecting loss, I beg leave to tender my salutations to yourself, and assurances of my friendly respects.
"THOMAS JEFFERSON. "MR. JOSEPH BRINGHURST."
The Historical Society of Pennsylvania proposes now to do what Mr. Jefferson fourscore years ago said would be done by a grateful posterity, — viz., " to con- secrate his name in history as one of the great wor- thies of the Revolution." Why so obvious and natural a duty as that of keeping alive the memory of this illustrious man in the city where most of his great deeds were done has been so long delayed, it is, perhaps, not difficult to account for. Perhaps one reason for this neglect may be found expressed in the reproachful words of the late Horace Binney, a man who filled the measure of his country's fame as he did that of the city of his birth, and who, when referring to the attitude of Philadelphia to her great men, says, " She has been , " hitherto, and perhaps immemorially, indifferent or in- " sensible to the abilities of her sons who have gained "their first public consideration elsewhere. She is "wanting in civic personality, or, what is perhaps a " better phrase for the thought, a family unity or iden-
22
338 THE DUTY OF PHILADELPHIA.
"tity. She does not take, and she never has taken, " satisfaction in habitually honoring her distinguished " men as her men, as men of her own family. It is the " city that is referred to as distinguished, perhaps, from " the rest of the State. She has never done it in the " face of the world, as Charleston has done it, as Rich- "mond has done it, as Baltimore has done it, as New " York has done it, or at least did it in former times, " and as Boston has done it, and would do it forever. " She is more indifferent to her own sons than she is "to strangers. "
APPENDIX I.— (/><** 73.)
RESOLUTIONS OF PENNSYLVANIA IN REGARD TO THE STAMP ACT, AS DRAFTED BY MR. DICKINSON.
Resolved — Ist — That the Constitution of Government in this Province, is founded on the natural Rights of Mankind, and the noble Principles of English Liberty, and is therefore perfectly free.
Resolved — 2ly — That in the opinion of this House, it is in- separably essential to a free Constitution of Government, that all internal Taxes be levied upon the People with their Consent.
Resolved— jly — That the sole Power and authority to levy Taxes upon the Inhabitants of this Province, is vested in the Crown or its Representative, and in the Assembly for the Time being, elected according to Law.
Resolved — ft — That the People of this Province have con- stantly from its first settlement exercised & enjoyed, and ought to the latest Posterity to exercise & enjoy, this exclusive Right of levying Taxes upon themselves.
Resolved — $ly — That the levying Taxes upon the Inhabitants of this Province in any other manner, being manifestly sub- versive of public Liberty, must of necessary Consequence be utterly destructive of public Happiness.
Resolved — 6ly — That a Trial by Jury on every accusation in a Court of Justice, is the inherent and inestimable Priviledge of every Freeman of this Province, which cannot be violated without breaking down the sacred Bulwark erected by the Virtue and Wisdom of our ancestors, for the Protection of Life, and of every Blessing that renders it valuable.
Resolved — 7^ — That it is the opinion of this House that the Restraints imposed by several late acts of Parliament on the Trade of this Province, at a Time when the People labour
339
340 APPENDIX.
under an enormous Load of Debt, must of necessity be attended with the most fatal Consequences.
Resolved— 8* — That it is the opinion of this House; That the Prosperity of this Province depends on the Preservation of its just Rights, and the Continuance of an affectionate and advan- tageous Intercourse with Great Britain which must prove equally beneficial to that Kingdom.
Resolved — p^ — That therefore it is the indispensable Duty of this House to the best of Sovereigns, whose truly paternal Ten- derness ever interests itself in the Welfare of his subjects, to the Mother Country and to this Province, with all Loyalty, Respect & Zeal, by every prudent Measure firmly to en- deavour to procure a Repeal of the Stamp Act, & of the late Acts for the Restriction of American Commerce —
APPENDIX I {.—(Page 105.)
CHARLES THOMSON'S ACCOUNT OF MR. DICKINSON'S ATTITUDE DURING THE REVOLUTION, FURNISHED TO HON. W. H. DRAYTON FOR HIS PROPOSED HISTORY OF THAT PERIOD.
SIR,
I have run over your manuscript, & as I perceive you must have had your information from some person who judged only from appearance, without being acquainted with the secret springs and reality of actions, I find myself obliged in justice to a character, which is not represented in a true point of light, to unfold the scene & give you a scetch of things as they really happened.
It is generally known what an early part Mr. D — took in the American disputes. His first piece in favour of America was written in the year 1765 during the Stamp Act. The sudden repeal of the stamp act rendered a farther continuation of his
THOMSON'S LETTER TO DRAYTON. 34i
labours at that time unnecessary. But the tea, paper, & glass act, called him forth again in the year 1767 — or 1768, when he published his Farmers letters which had the effect to rouse America to a sense of its danger & to adopt measures for preventing the evils threatened & obtaining a redress of grievances. The partial repeal of this Act in the Year 1770 — in a great measure put an end to the apprehensions of the Americans, & peace & good humour seemed to be again re- stored. During all this time Mr. D — was considered as the first Champion for American liberty. His abilities exercised in defence of the rights of his Country raised his Character high not only in America but in Europe & his fortune & hospitality gave him great influence in his own State.
When the controversy was again renewed between Great Britain & America in the Year 1772, the Merchants of Philada. who first took alarm at the attempt of introducing tea to America through the medium of the East India Company, were anxious to engage him in the dispute. But from this he was dissuaded by one of his most intimate friends, who seemed to be persuaded that this new attempt of the ministry would lead to most serious consequences & terminate in blood & who therefore wished him to reserve himself till matters became more serious. For this reason he was not publickly concerned in the measures taken for sending back the tea. But in the spring of 1774 as soon as the news of the Boston port bill &c. arrived his friend who had taken an active part in the measures for sending back the tea, immediately communicated to him the intelligence & gave his opinion that now was the time to step forward. The measures proper to be pursued on this occasion were secretly concerted between them. And to prepare the minds of the people D — undertook to address the public in a series of letters. The next day the letters arrived from Boston, & it was judged proper to call a meeting of the principal inhabitants, to communicate to them the contents of the letter & gain their concurrence in the measures that were necessary to be taken. As the quakers, who are prin-
342 APPENDIX.
cipled against war saw the storm gathering & therefore wished to keep aloof from danger, were industriously employ'd to prevent anything being done which might involve Penna. farther in the dispute, & as it was apparent that for this purpose their whole force would be collected at the ensuing meeting, it was necessary to devise means so to counteract their designs as to carry the measures proposed & yet pre- vent a disunion, & thus if possible bring Penna. with its whole force undivided to make common cause with Boston. The line of conduct Mr. D — had lately pursued opened a prospect to this. His sentiments were not generally known. The quakers courted & seemed to depend upon him. The other party from his past conduct hoped for his assistance, but were not sure how far he would go if matters came to ex- tremity, his sentiments on the present controversy not being generally known. It was therefore agreed that he should at- tend the meeting & as it would be in vain for Philada. or even Penna. to enter into the dispute unless seconded & sup- ported by the other Colonies, the only point to be carried at the ensuing meeting was to return a friendly and affectionate answer to the people of Boston, to forward the news of their distress to the Southern Colonies & to consult them & the eastern colonies on the propriety of calling a congress to con- sult on the measures necessary to be taken. If divisions ran high at the meeting it was agreed, to propose the calling together the Assembly in order to gain time.
To accomplish this it was agreed that his Friend who was represented as a rash man should press for an immediate decla- ration in favour of Boston & get some of his friends to support him in the measure, that Mr. D — should oppose and press for moderate measures, & thus by an apparent dispute prevent a farther opposition & carry the point agreed on. For this pur- pose R — and M — were sounded & an invitation given to dine with Mr. D — on the day of the meeting. After dinner the four had a private conference at which D — was pressed to attend the meeting which was to be in the evening. D — offered sundry
THOMSON'S LETTER TO DRAYTON. 343
excuses, but at last seemed to consent provided matters were so conducted that he might be allowed to propose & carry mod- erate measures. T — who was on the watch, & who thought he saw some reluctance in one of the Gentlemen to4be brought to act a second part prevented a farther explanation by pro- posing that R — should open the meeting M — second him, that T — should then speak & after him D — And that afterwards they should speak as occasion offered. After this the conver- sation was more reserved, & soon after R — and M — returned to town. At parting they pressed T — to bring D — with him & T — assured them he would not come without him. The car- riage was ordered up & after they had been some time gone so that all might not seem to have been together D — and T — stept into the carriage & drove down to the city tavern the place of meeting. The meeting was held in the long Room. The letter reed: from Boston was read after which R — addressed the assembly, with temper, moderation, but in pathetic terms. M — spoke next & with more warmth & fire. T — succeeded & pressed for an immediate declaration in favour of Boston & making common cause with her. But being overcome with the heat of the room and fatigue, for he had scarce slept an hour two nights past, he fainted & was carried out into an adjoining room. Great clamour was raised against the violence of the measures proposed. D — then ad- dressed the company and in what manner he acquitted himself I cannot say. After he had finished, the clamour was renewed, voices were heard in different parts of the room & all was in confusion. A chairman was called for to moderate the meeting & regulate debate, still the confusion continued. As soon as T — recovered he returned into the room. The tu- mult and disorder was past description. He had not strength to attempt opposing the gust of passion or to allay the heat by any thing he could say. He therefore simply moved a question That an answer should be returned to the letter from Boston. This was put & carried. He then moved for a committee to write the answer. This was agreed to, & two lists were im-
344 APPENDIX.
mediately made out & handed to the Chair. The clamour was then renewed on which list a vote should be taken. At length it was proposed that both lists should be considered as one and compose the committee. This was agreed to & the company broke up in tolerable good humour both thinking they had in part carried their point. At what time D — left the room I cannot say, as a great many withdrew when the tumult raged. — The next day the Committee met & not only prepared & sent back an answer to Boston but also forwarded the news to the southern colonies accompanied with letters intimating the necessity of a congress of delegates from all the colonies to de- vise measures necessary to call a general meeting of the inhab- itants of the City at the State House. This required great address. The quakers had an aversion to town meetings & always opposed them. However it was so managed that they gave their consent & assisted .in preparing the business for this public meeting, agreed on the persons who should preside & those who should address the inhabitants. The presidents agreed on were Dickinson Willing & Pennington, and the speakers Smith, Reed & Thomson who were obliged to write down what they intended to say & submit their several speeches to the revision of the presidents. The meeting was held at which it was among other things, resolved to make common cause with Boston. The resolutions passed at this meeting are published in the news papers of the time prefaced with Smith's speech at full length. In the mean while it was judged proper to address the governor to call the assembly. Tho it was hardly expected the governor would comply, yet it was neces- sary to take this step in order to prevent farther division in the City & to convince the pacific that it was not the intention of the warm spirits to involve the province in the dispute without the consent of the representatives of the people. The address was drawn up & signed by the leading men of both parties and presented to the Governor. The answer was such as was expected That he could not call the assembly for the purpose mentioned & he added that he was sure the gentlemen did
THOMSON'S LETTER TO DRAYTON. 345
not expect, considering his situation that he would comply with their request. His answer was considered as calculated for the meridian of London. — Whether the Governor wished to gratify the inhabitants & favour the cause of America by con- vening the assembly, or whether thereby from the sentiments supposed to prevail in the members of the house, he hoped to counteract the views of those who wished to bring Penna. into the dispute is uncertain. But from whatever motives he acted, certain it is that he immediately summoned his council & in a very few days took occasion from a report of Indian disturbances to convene the assembly. — The refusal of the Governor to call the assembly was far from being disagreeable to the advocates for America. They had no confidence in the members of the assembly who were known to be under the in- fluence of Galloway & his party, and they had another object in view. When the merchants led the people into an op- position to the importation of the East India Company's tea, those who considered that matter only as a manoeuvre of the ministry to revive the disputes between G. B. & America & who were firmly persuaded that the disputes would terminate in blood, immediately adopted measures to bring the whole body of the people into the dispute & thereby put it out of the power of the merchants as they had done before to drop the opposition, when interest dictated the measure. They therefore got committees established in every County through- out the province. A constant communication was kept up between those committees & that of Philada. Upon the Gov- ernor's refusal to call the assembly it was resolved to procure a meeting of delegates from these committees. And when the Governor agreed to call the assembly, still it was thought proper to convene a convention of the committees in order to draw up instructions to their representatives in assembly. In all these measures D — was consulted & heartily concurred, & so earnestly did he interest himself that he prepared the in- structions & had them ready for publication previous to the meeting of the convention.
346 APPENDIX.
After the meeting of the Inhabitants of Philada. & the resolutions passed at the State House, D — M — & T — under colour of an excursion of pleasure made a tour through two or three frontier counties in order to discover the sentiments of the inhabitants & particularly the Germans. The Conven- tion of committees met some days before the assembly & having agreed to the state of American grievances drawn up by D — presented them to the assembly in the form of in- structions in order to engage them to pursue measures in concert with the other colonies for obtaining redress. And as a Congress was now agreed on they pressed the assembly to appoint delegates to represent this province in Congress resolving at the same time, in case the Assembly refused, to take upon themselves to appoint deputies. To prevent this the Assembly agreed to appoint the delegates, but confined the choice to their own members thereby excluding Mr. D — & Wilson whom the Convention had in view. At the ensuing election on the first Octbr. Mr. D — was chosen a member of the Assembly & on the meeting of the Assembly was added to the number of Delegates. His election was on Saturday the I5th. & on Monday the i/th. Octbr. he took his seat in Congress & immediately entered deeply into the business then under deliberation. He was appointed one of the Committee to prepare an address to the people of Canada. The first draught of the petition to the King not meeting the approbation of Congress was recommitted. Dickinson was added to the comee. & had a principal hand in drawing up that which was sent. After Congress broke up he attended the Assembly & there exerted himself to obtain an approba- tion of the proceedings of Congress, which was carried in spite of Galloway's efforts to the contrary. During the winter sessions he frequently had occasion which he always improved to call the attention of the House to the danger that threat- ened, to rouse them to a sense of it, & to stimulate them to adopt measures for their defence & security, in which he was supported by Mifflin, Biddle, Ross and Thomson, who were all
THOMSON'S LETTER TO DRAYTON. 347
in the Assembly. The part they had to act was arduous and delicate. A great majority of the Assembly was composed of men in the proprietary & quaker interest who though here- tofore opposed to each other were now uniting the one from motives of policy, the other from principles of religion. To press matters was the sure way of cementing that union & thereby raising a powerful party in the state against the cause of America. Whereas, by prudent management & an im- provement of occurrences as they happened, there was reason to hope that the Assembly & consequently the whole province might be brought into the dispute without any considerable opposition. And from past experience it was evident that though the people of Penna. are cautious & backward in entering into measures, yet when they engage, none are more firm resolute & persevering. A great body of the people was composed of Germans the principal reliance was on them in case matters came to extremities. And it is well known these were much under the influence of quakers. For this reason therefore it was necessary to act with more caution & by every prudent means to obtain their concurrence in the opposi- tion to the designs of Great Britain. And had the Whigs in Assembly been left to pursue their own measures there is every reason to believe they would have effected their purpose, pre- vented that disunion which has unhappily taken place & brought the whole province as one man with all its force & weight of government into the common cause.
Danger was fast approaching. The storm which had been gathering began to burst. The battle of Lexington was fought. Many of the members then in Assembly had long held seats there & were fond of continuing. They had hitherto joined with very little opposition in defensive measures, & it was evident that rather than give up their seats in Assembly & the importance derived from thence they would go still farther & thus might be led on step by step till they had advanced too far to retreat. Their past & future conduct justified this conclusion in the Winter sessions they voted a sum of money
348 APPENDIX.
to purchase Ammunition. And in the summer of 1775 though a majority of the Assembly were of the people called quakers they agreed to arm the inhabitants & ordered five thousand new muskets with bayonets & other accoutrements to be made. And as they had not money in the treasury, & could not have the concurrence of the Governor in raising money to pay for them, they, by a resolve of their own to which there was only three dissenting voices, ordered 35,000 pounds to be struck in bills of credit & pledged the faith of the province for the redemption of it, thus virtually declaring themselves independent & assuming to themselves the whole power of government.
The original constitution of Penna. was very favorable & well adapted to the present emergencies. The Assembly was annual ; the election fixed to a certain day on which the freemen who were worth 50 pounds met, or had a right to meet without summons at their respective County towns & by ballot chuse not only representatives for Assembly, but also sheriff, coroners, commissioners for managing the affairs of the County & assessors to rate the tax imposed by law upon the estates real & personal of the several inhabitants of their County. The members of the House of Assembly when chosen met according to law on a certain day & chose their Speaker, provincial treasurer, & sundry other officers. The House sat on its own adjournments ; nor was it in the power of the Governor to prorogue or dissolve it. Hence it is apparent that Penna. had a great advantage over the other colonies which by being deprived by their Governors of their legal assemblies or houses of representatives constitutionally chosen were forced into conventions. The Assembly of Penna., if they could be brought to take a part, supplied the place of a convention with this advantage that being a part of the legislature they preserved the legal forms of government, & had consequently more weight & authority among the people. No man could refuse to attend the election of assem- bly men without taking upon himself the consequences of what
THOMSON'S LETTER TO DRAYTON. 349
might follow by his not attending & giving his vote. On the other hand, if he attended & the men of his choice were not elected, he had no right to complain as the majority of votes decided. The cause of America was every day gaining ground, and the people growing more & more determined. The timid were acquiring courage & the wavering confirmed in the opposition. Hence it was apparent the election would soon be wholly in the power of the patriots & whig party. For these reasons the whigs who were then members wished to temporise and make use of the Assembly rather than a con- vention. But unhappily for the province they were thwarted in their measures by a body of men from whom they expected to derive the firmest support.
The Committee of Philada. which was elected for the pur- pose of superintending & carrying into execution the non importation agreement recommended by the Congress in 1774, & of which Mr. Reed was president was for the purpose of giving them more weight & influence encreased to the number of 100. Many members of this body who were suddenly raised to power & who exercised an uncontrolled authority over their fellow citizens were impatient of any kind of op- position. The cautious conduct of the patriots in the Assem- bly, they attributed to lukewarmness, & the backwardness of others which was owing partly to a natural timidity of temper, partly to the influence of religious principles & old prejudices they construed into disaffection. Instead therefore of co- operating to keep down parties, they were labouring to raise & foment them. And at the very moment when the Assembly were giving the most solid proofs of their attachment to the cause & gradually encroaching on the powers of the governor in order to arm & put the province into a state of defence, the Comee. were adopting measures to dissolve them and substitute a convention in their stead & proceeded so far as to vote a convention necessary & appointed a special meeting in order to devise the means of bringing the other county committees to a like determination. D— M— & T — who were of the
35° APPENDIX.
assembly, & who were also members of the committee attended the special meeting, & by pointing out the ill timed policy of the measure & the fatal consequences that might & would in- evitably ensue prevailed upon them to desist. And thus for a time the province was saved from being rent to pieces. D — and M — were also members of congress. The Battle of Lex- ington had drawn together a tumultuous army around Boston, & that had brought on the Battle of Bunkerhill. Much blood was now shed. And it was evident that the sword must de- cide the contest. It was necessary therefore to organise the Army & appoint a continental commander in chief & other general Officers. A declaration was deemed necessary to jus- tify the Americans in taking up Arms. D — who still retained a fond hope of reconciliation with Great Britain was strenuous for trying the effects of another petition to the King. And being warmly seconded the measure was agreed to & D — had a considerable hand in drawing up both the petition & decla- ration which were both sent at the same time to England. The subject of the petition as well as the declaration occasioned long & warm debates in congress, in which D — took a dis- tinguished part, which was circulated about in whispers to his disadvantage. However he maintained his ground among the generality of the people of his own province & particularly among those who still wished & hoped to see a reconciliation take place. And it must be allowed that if his judgment had not quite approved the measure yet on account of the people of Penna. it was both prudent & politic to adopt it. With- out making an experiment it would have been impossible even to have persuaded the bulk of Penna. but that an humble petition drawn up without those clauses against which the ministers & parliament of Great Britain took exceptions in the former petition, would have met with a favorable reception and produced the desired effect. But this petition which was drawn up in the most submissive & unexceptionable terms, meeting with the same fate as others obviated objections that would have been raised & had a powerful effect in suppressing
THOMSON'S LETTER TO DRAYTON. 35 1
opposition, preserving unanimity & bringing the province in a united Body into the contest. Whatever hand therefore D — had in promoting it ought to have redounded to his credit as a politician. At the annual election in October 1775 some change was made in Assembly some old members were left out, & some new ones chosen, among the latter Mr. Reed. As the Governor had withdrawn himself in a great degree from the affairs of Government, the Assembly at their first meeting appointed a Council or Committee of Safety & in- vested them with the executive powers of government reserving to themselves the legislative authority which they exercised by resolves.
In Novr. the Assembly returned among other delegates to represent the province of Penna. in Congress Mr. Willing one of the Judges of the Supreme Court & Mr. Allen the attor- ney General of the province & Brother in law of the governor. So that there was yet no appearance of disunion in the Prov- ince. Except among some few of the most rigid quakers who kept aloof & refused to be concerned in elections for Assembly men, under pretence that their religious principles forbad their countenancing War. But neither influence, persuasions or Church discipline could restrain a considerable number of their young Men from taking an active part. A distinction was taken between offensive and defensive War which might easily have been improved to divide the society in such a manner as to have rendered every opposition from that quarter weak and contemptible.
NOTE. — This most valuable statement of the condition of affairs in Pennsylvania between the summer of 1774 and the beginning of the year 1776 is taken from a copy of a letter (in his own handwriting) of Charles Thomson, Secretary of Con- gress, to W. H. Drayton. The original was in the possession of Mr. Thomson's nephew. Its accuracy is attested by Miss Sarah N. Dickinson, the daughter of Mr. Dickinson. The initial T. designates Charles Thomson. M. refers to General Mifflin.
35 2 APPENDIX.
APPENDIX I II.— (.Page 125.)
THE MORAVIAN INDIAN CONVERTS AND THE QUAKERS.
As doubts have been expressed in regard to the arming of certain Quakers in Philadelphia in the defence of the Indian Moravian converts, the following testimony of eye-witnesses is reproduced :
" It seemed almost incredible that sundry young and old Quakers formed companies and took up arms, particularly so to the boys in the streets, for a whole crowd of boys followed a distinguished Quaker and in astonishment cried out, ' Look here ! a Quaker with a musket on his shoulder.' It was by many old people looked upon as a wonderful sign to see so many old and young Quakers marching about with sword and gun, or deadly weapons, so called. What increased the won- der was that the pious lambs, in the long French, Spanish, and Indian wars, had such tender consciences, and would sooner die than raise a hand in defence against these dangerous ene- mies ; and now at once, like Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah (Kings, 22 chap.), with iron horns rushing upon a handful of our poor distressed and ruined fellow-citizens and inhabitants of the frontier." — March of the Paxton Boys against Philadelphia in 1 764. From the Diary of Rev. H. M. Muhlenberg. Collec- tions of the Historical Society of Penna., vol. i. p. 95, Phila., 1853.
To the same effect is the testimony, written at the time and on the spot, in reference to the Quakers of Philadelphia taking up arms during the Paxton insurrection, in the month of Feb- ruary, 1764. Translated from the German originals preserved in the archives of the Moravian church at Bethlehem, Pa. :
I. An extract from the " Diary of the Indian Congregation in the Barracks at Philadelphia," said diary being a record of events from day to day officially furnished the authorities of the Moravian church at Bethlehem by the Moravian mission- aries who were with the Indians in the barracks, — viz., David Zeisberger, Bernhard Adam Grube, and John Jacob Schmick :
QUAKERS BEAR ARMS. 353
" FEB. 6. — At midnight a general alarm was sounded and all rushed to arms. The bells in the city were rung. The citizens were awakened and summoned to the state house, for word had come that the insurgents would be on hand at daybreak. Our Indians slept quite peacefully and took little notice of the uproar. During the day several Brethren from the city visited us. The day was passed amid the utmost confusion. Two companies of citizens, among whom were many Quakers in arms, came in here" [i.e., into the barracks].
2. Extract from a letter of Grube to Bishop Nathanael Seidel, of Bethlehem, dated February 9, 1764:
" We have seen on this occasion that we yet have many hundred friends in the city who are not willing that we should be put to death. Even many Quakers armed were with the com- pany here in the Barracks"
3. Extract from a letter of the Rev. George Neisser, at the time pastor of the Moravian church in Philadelphia, to Fred- erick W. de Marschall, then at Bethlehem, dated February 6, 1764:
" They [i.e., the Messrs. Hamilton and Chew] had so much influence [i.e., in their efforts to arouse the people against the insurgents] that about 500 men formed in companies, and even Quakers, especially young men, took up arms''
APPENDIX IV.— (/><** 161.)
DECLARATION OF THE CAUSES OF TAKING UP ARMS.
THE paper from which the following extracts are taken was prepared in 1882 by Dr. George H. Moore, of the Historical Society of New York, and read at one of its meetings. By his kind permission they are reprinted here.
Dr. Moore had found among the original papers in the possession of the Society a document which proved to be a
23
354 APPENDIX.
draft of the " Declaration of the Causes of taking up Arms," adopted by Congress in July, 1775. From his familiarity with the handwriting of men conspicuous in Revolutionary history he was soon able .to identify that used in this paper with the handwriting of John Dickinson. Having been confirmed in his opinion by a careful comparison of this paper with au- thentic writings of Mr. Dickinson, he came to the conclusion that he, and not Mr. Jefferson (as had been claimed by himself and by his numerous biographers), was the true author of every part of the famous " Declaration of the Causes of taking up Arms." He prepared and read before the Society in whose possession this precious document was found a complete and satisfactory vindication of Mr. Dickinson's claim to the author- ship of this paper.
Dr. Moore's paper treats of many events in Mr. Dickinson's life which have been referred to in the text, and therefore those portions are not reproduced here. His paper is accompanied by a fac-simile of the draft of the " Declaration." It has been found practicable to insert here only a portion of that fac- simile, the portion chosen being the famous last four and a half paragraphs, which Mr. Jefferson seems to have had a peculiar pride in claiming as his own.
Statement of Dr. George H. Moore.
We have the positive statement of Mr. Dickinson that the Declaration on taking up Arms in 1775, like all the other papers included in the publication of his political writings, was composed by him. We find no other claimant for it or any part of it, during his lifetime. And he had rested with his life's best companion in the quiet Friends' burying ground in Wilmington for nearly a quarter of a century before the first and probably last and only interference with his title began to be bruited abroad.
In 1829, the Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson, were first published from the original MSS. under the editorial supervision of his nephew, the late
DR. MOORE'S ADDRESS. 355
Thomas Jefferson Randolph. The Memoir, contained in the first volume, gives circumstantial notices of his earliest life; and is continued to his arrival in New York, in March, 1790, when he entered on the duties of Secretary of State, under Washington. Its first sentence indicates the time and circum- stances in which it was written.
" JANUARY 6, 1821. At the age of seventy-seven, I began to make some memoranda, and state some recollections of dates and facts concerning myself, for my own more ready reference, and for the information of my family."
Mr. Jefferson's life and career are too familiar to need any recapitulation here of the events which preceded his entry into Congress, in which he was destined to hold so conspicuous a place. I shall therefore have occasion to quote those pas- sages only from his autobiography which record his entrance there and happen to be those which chiefly concern the subject and the object of the present paper. Mr. Jefferson says :
" I took my seat with them on the 2ist of June. On the 24th, a committee which had been appointed to prepare a dec- laration of the causes of taking up arms, brought in their re- port (drawn I believe by J. Rutledge) which, not being liked, the House recommitted it on the 26th, and added Mr. Dickin- son and myself to the committee. . . . I prepared a draught of the Declaration committed to us.1 It was too strong for Mr. Dickinson. He still retained the hope of reconciliation with the mother country, and was unwilling it should be lessened by offensive statements. He was so honest a man, and so able a one, that he was greatly indulged even by those who could not feel his scruples. We therefore requested him to take the paper, and put it into a form he could approve. He did so, pre- paring an entire new statement, and preserving of the former only
1 It would be an interesting feature of this discussion, if a comparison could be made between the draft which Mr. Jefferson says he prepared, too strong for Mr. Dickinson, and the stirring periods of the document we have! Certainly nothing which Mr. Jefferson had written before that time has anything like the tone and ring of this Declaration, and I do not think it can ever suffer in any just comparison with the much more famous Declaration of Independence a year later.
356 APPENDIX.
the LAST FOUR PARAGRAPHS AND HALF OF THE PRECEDING ONE.
We approved and reported it to Congress, who accepted it."
Such is Mr. Jefferson's own account of his share in the composition of the Declaration of 17/5.
Mr. Tucker, in his life of Jefferson, published in 1837, a few years later, reasserts the claim thus made in the Autobiogra- phy, and quotes entire " the part furnished by Mr. Jefferson" . . . " as a specimen of his sentiments and diction at the time." He states as a fact, derived from anecdotes related in the same autobiography, that " the pride of authorship relative to the sev- eral public addresses which emanated from that body, mingled with their grave and momentous deliberations."
Mr. Tucker does not fail to call attention to the fact that the portion claimed by Jefferson is " precisely that part of Mr. Dickinson's paper which annalists have commonly quoted," and adds — " It probably owes its distinction not wholly to its in- trinsic superiority, but in part also to its harmonizing better with the issue of the contest."
Mr. Jefferson's reputation as a writer, which is said to have preceded him in the Congress, was that of the author of " A Summary View of the Rights of British America" — the pro- posed instructions to the Virginia delegates in 1774. It must have been not a little enlarged by his answer to the conciliatory propositions of Lord North presented by Lord Dunmore to the Virginia Assembly in June, 1775, — which as the result of their action he brought with him to Philadelphia.
I think no one will question the opinion that the diction of this document is altogether different and manifestly inferior to the Declaration. It was reported to the House on the I2th of June, and was adopted " with a few softening touches."
In this paper the Burgesses, after professing their wish for a reconciliation with the mother country, as, next to the profes- sion of liberty, " the greatest of all human blessings," declare, that they cannot accept the proffered terms, and refer the sub- ject to the General Congress then sitting. They conclude in the following animated strain :
DR. MOORE'S ADDRESS. 357
" For ourselves, we have exhausted every mode of applica- tion which our invention could suggest, as proper and prom- ising. We have devoutly remonstrated with Parliament ; they have added new injuries to the old. We have wearied our King with supplications ; he has not deigned to answer us. We have appealed to the native honor and justice of the British Nation ; their efforts in our favor have hitherto been ineffectual. What then remains to be done ? That we commit our injuries to the even-handed justice of that Being who doth no wrong, earnestly beseeching him to illuminate the Councils, and pros- per the endeavors of those to whom America hath confided her hopes ; that through their wise direction we may again see reunited the blessings of liberty and property, and the most permanent harmony with Great Britain."
Neither this document, nor the still more important amplifi- cation of it which Mr. Jefferson wrote in the following month, indicates any of those unmistakable features in common with the concluding paragraphs of the Declaration of 1775 — the family resemblance which might stamp them as the offspring of the same parent.
As we read them in order, even if we could recognize the step of the march as taken in similar time, the changes seem like those of the military parades with which we are all familiar, in which the monotonous though noisy drums and fifes fill up the intervals of far grander music.
A later biographer of Mr. Jefferson enlarges on this theme with much greater enthusiasm, but no more knowledge : — He says of his idol —
" He had not a particle of the vanity of authorship, of being at the head of committees, or of bearing the name of leader- ship. In three cases out of four, where, in his various writings, he mentions his participation in the action of any celebrated committee of which he was really chairman, he places his name last — and this, oftentimes, in instances where it is not easy to find the records which assign him his true position. We scarcely recollect an example of a contrary kind, where a
35 8 APPENDIX.
positive effort had not been made (not to leave the thing in a state of equality where he left it) but to directly take credit from him to give it to another. And his reclamations, then, were usually something of the latest, as in the instance just given in regard to the Address on the Causes of taking up Arms.
" That production was one of the most popular ones ever issued by Congress. It was read amid thundering huzzas in every market place, and amid fervent prayers in nearly every pulpit in the Colonies. The commanders read it at the head of our armies.1 On the heights of Dorchester (we think it was) amid booming cannon and under the folds of the banner bearing the ever-green pine tree and the sternly confident motto 'Qui transtulit, sustinet,' Putnam proclaimed it to the applauding yeomanry of New England under his command. It was quoted again and again admiringly in history. It will not probably be denied that this celebrated production owed most of its popularity to ' the last four paragraphs and half of the preceding one.' It would have been a very ordinary affair without these. This was the only part the admiring historians quoted. Yet ' the youngest member but one in Congress* never gave even a hint (we believe) of its authorship, suffering all the reputation of it to rest with Mr. Dickinson, until he men- tioned it in a paper (the Memoir) destined never to see the light until Mr. Dickinson and himself had gone down to the grave. Of this, as of various other reclamations which he really owed to himself, he made no memoranda until he was seventy-seven years old, showing how little precaution he took, or anxiety he felt, on the subject. And many of them, like this, seem rather accidentally or incidentally made in his simple narration of facts, than set down for any special purpose. It may be truly said, and the remark is thrown out here somewhat in advance — that the reader may make it a standard to try Mr. Jefferson
1 Bancroft : viii. 47. Declaration read " on Prospect Hill amidst such shouts that the British on Bunker Hill put themselves in array for battle" on the i8th July, 1775.
DR. MOORE'S ADDRESS. 359
by on all occasions — that a conspicuous public man more utterly destitute of vanity than he was, never existed. . . ." Randall: vol. ii., 1 14-116.
Such is Mr. Randall's estimate of what he elsewhere de- scribes as " the first purely popular address prepared by Mr. Jefferson," and that gentleman's self-denying modesty. It is hardly necessary to add Mr. Parton's vivacious and lively periods on this topic. He improves on all his predecessors, and illuminates for the moment by his brilliant persiflage the shadows he aims to deepen over any part which Mr. Dickinson or anybody else but Mr. Jefferson might, could, would or should claim, in the Declaration of 1775.
Here, permit me to pause a moment and return to Mr. Jef- ferson's memoranda — in which his story of the Declaration is supplemented by a still more extraordinary account of the second Petition to the King, of which, it will be noticed, he does not claim any share in the composition. I must ask your close attention to every word of this studied depreciation of Mr. Dickinson and its dramatic finish in the final anecdote.
" Congress gave a signal proof of their indulgence to Mr. Dickinson, and of their great desire not to go too fast for any respectable part of our body, in permitting him to draw their second petition to the King according to his own ideas, and passing it with scarcely any amendment. The disgust against its humility was general, and Mr. Dickinson's delight at its passage was the only circumstance which reconciled them to it. The vote being passed, although further observation on it was out of order, he could not refrain from rising and express- ing his satisfaction, and concluded by saying, ' there is but one word, Mr. President, in the paper which I disapprove, and that is the word Congress;' on which Ben Harrison rose and said, ' there is but one word in the paper, Mr. President, of which I approve, and that is the word Congress' '
The official record of proceedings on this subject is as fol- lows :
On the 3d of June, 1775, it was resolved that a committee
360 APPENDIX.
of five be appointed to draught a petition to the King — and when the Congress proceeded to the choice, which was by ballot, the following gentlemen were elected : Messrs. DICKINSON
JOHNSON
J. RUTLEDGE
JAY AND
FRANKLIN.
On the I pth June, the Committee appointed to prepare a petition to the King, reported a draught of one, which was read.1
On the 4th July, the petition to the King being again read, after some debate, the further consideration of it was deferred till the next day, when Congress resumed its consideration and being debated by paragraphs, was agreed to, and ordered to be engrossed.
On the 8th July, having been engrossed, it was compared at the table and signed by the members present.
It must not be forgotten that this paper which Mr. Jefferson would have us believe was reluctantly and barely tolerated by an impatient Congress was drawn by the same hand and under consideration at the same time with the Declaration,2 a share in whose composition is claimed by Mr. Jefferson himself. He emphasizes the contrast between the general disgust at the hu- mility of the one and the universal admiration of the other by his picture of the delight of Mr. Dickinson — but the absurdity
1 Washington was appointed Commander-in-chief on the I5th of June, 1775-
2 " As to matters of fact, the Proclamation ; which you ascribe to General Washington upon his first taking the command of the Army, was drawn up by Congress. The consideration of it proceeded pari passu with the Petition to the King, and was passed by Congress while the Petition was engrossing. The truth is there was a considerable opposition to the sending another petition considering the manner in which the former had been treated. But several members were warm in favour of it. The matter was compromised, and the petition and decla- ration were both ordered and passed in a manner together." C. T. to D. Ramsay. New York: Nov. 4, 1786. Coll. N, Y. H. S. 1878 : pp. 215-16.
DR. MOORE'S ADDRESS. 361
of his narrative reaches its climax in the anecdote about the word Congress.
That word appears but once in the entire document ; in the opening sentence, which is precisely similar, indeed in almost the identical words of the first petition. Nobody can read the document itself and believe for one moment that either Mr. Dickinson or Mr. Harrison could by any possibility have wasted their breath in such empty talk on any occasion, much less in a scene of such momentous interest to themselves and their country.
Yet ridiculous as it must appear to any well ordered intellect, after a moment's attention, this worthless tale has been em- balmed in some of the most carefully written periods of our ablest historians — like a dead fly in the precious ointment of the apothecary. They seem to have thought the word " Con- gress" a word to charm with — a word of mysterious power and significance — instead of a harmless necessary word of descrip- tion in that place, and one absolutely colorless and void of offence. It would hopelessly puzzle the most diligent critic to find anything hidden in that simple combination of eight letters of the alphabet, where it is used in that document.
If any man can discover any good honest reason why Mr. Jefferson wrote such a story in his autobiography — he will render a seasonable and important service to the much exalted reputation of its author.
Mr. Jefferson himself has furnished a formula for stating with due respect any doubts of the accuracy of his recollec- tions. Referring to a letter of Governor McKean, written in July, 1807, on the circumstances attending the Declaration of Independence, he says, that the Governor, " trusting to his memory chiefly, at an age when our memories are not to be trusted, has confounded two questions and ascribed proceed- ings to one which belonged to the other." x
1 In a letter to Madison, Aug. 30, 1823, Mr. Jefferson says: " Mr. Adams's memory has led him into unquestionable error. At the age of eighty-eight and forty-seven years after the transactions . . . this is not wonderful. Nor should
362 APPENDIX.
Now Governor McKean had then reached his seventy-third year. Mr. Jefferson's Memoirs were begun, as he has himself told us, at the age of seventy-seven. To complete them, he seems to have not only trusted his memory but taxed his invention.
I have quoted the performances of Mr. Jefferson's biogra- phers, who have adopted his statements without any hesitation. It is needless to multiply examples of the facility with which the pen of the ready writer contributes to the currency of errors of fact, which become inveterate by repetition.
" Addictus jurare in verba magistri," if not the motto, de- scribes the active principle of the great mass of hasty, care- less, indifferent, and uncritical writers of what they or their publishers call history.
But these are not all. The greatest is behind — for the hon- ored name of Mr. Bancroft must be cited as having accepted without criticism these statements of Mr. Jefferson. That great historian, whose work is at once the monument of his own fame and that of his country, is not to be mentioned here or by me without becoming reverence. The patriarch of Ameri- can Letters, he has just added to the permanent literature of the world two volumes on the History of the Formation of the Federal Constitution which will doubtless increase his exalted reputation. His reference in the beginning of his last volume to his old and his new friends is touching in its pathetic inter- est : " Scarcely one who wished me good speed when I first essayed to trace the history of America remains to greet me with a welcome as I near the goal. Deeply grateful as I am for the friends who rise up to gladden my old age, their en-
I, at the age of eighty, on the small advantage of that difference only, venture to oppose my memory to his, were it not supported by written notes, taken by my- self at the moment, and on the spot." Works : vii. 304.
In a letter to Mr. Wirt (Aug. 5, 1815), he says of the same period: "the transaction is too distant, and my memory too indistinct to hazard as with precision even what I think I heard from them [other contemporaries]. In this decay of memory, Mr. Edmund Randolph must have suffered at a much earlier period of life than myself." Works : vi. 486.
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DR. MOORE'S ADDRESS. 363
couragement must renew my grief for those who have gone before me."
At an age when most men seek repose and rest on their laurels, he is challenging new labors, and achieving new tri- umphs. Yet, Homer sometimes nods, and although accustomed to deal with every form of the materials of history, with a keen- ness of critical faculty and skill unrivalled, yes, unapproached by any of his fellows — in this case, Mr. Bancroft seems to have been overpowered in the presence of the great chief of Ameri- can Democracy. He could not question the authority of Thomas Jefferson.
We have then Mr. Dickinson's positive statement that he was the author of the document. Mr. Jefferson himself con- firms it as to all but the " last four paragraphs and half of the preceding one."
The original manuscript draft, to which I now call the atten- tion of the Society, proves that the author of any part was the author of every part — that there was but one hand in the work, and that the hand of John Dickinson.
I am well aware of the danger of attempting to determine the authorship of a paper, intended for the public, from the handwriting in which the manuscript appears — unless the proofs are patent that it came from the hand of him whose thoughts and expressions it records. In this case there is no room whatever for doubt The suggestion of imitation or for- gery is excluded. No person but the author himself ever had any hand in the preparation of this document. It is in the handwriting of John Dickinson, and these corrections, additions, interlineations, revisions, in number, extent, position and character, forbid the supposition that he copied any portion of this paper from a draft by Mr. Jefferson, or any other person. It is the original first draft of the whole, and the proof of it is in no portion of the whole more conspicuous and certain than in the " last four paragraphs and half of the preceding one" claimed as his own by Mr. Jefferson — in his old age — and accorded to him without doubt or hesitation ever since.
3^4 APPENDIX.
For the use of original papers for comparison which enabled me to determine positively the fact of authorship by identifying the handwriting of this document, and its author's method of composition, I was indebted to the late Dr. John Dickinson Logan of Baltimore, who became interested in my purpose, and was gratified by the results of my examination. Had he lived to this day, he would have been still more gratified by the knowledge that I should have this opportunity to present them to the New York Historical Society.
His kindness and confidence enabled me to place side by side with these sheets — the similar drafts of one of the Petitions to the King, and the Address to the Inhabitants of Quebec, dated October 26th, 1774, all indicating the same methods of composition and all unquestionably in the same handwriting. I have had ample opportunity to acquire the knowledge of an expert in these and similar examinations, and I have no hesitation in speaking positively, and without fear of cavil or contradiction from any one who is qualified to give an opinion in the case. My position cannot be suc- cessfully assailed. I am sure of it.
And now my task is ended — my purpose is accomplished. Permit me however to say that I will not disguise the pleasure I have felt in paying such tribute as I could to the memory of John Dickinson — the grand old Quaker Farmer on the Dela- ware!
APPENDIX V.—
MR. DICKINSON'S VINDICATION OF HIS CAREER DURING THE
REVOLUTION.
{Freeman's Journal, Wednesday, Jan. i, 1783.)
MR. BAILEY, — I shall be obliged to you, if you will be pleased to give the following piece a place in your paper. Its being writ in fragments of evenings, after attention to the public
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION.
and private duties of the day, will, I hope, be admitted as a sufficient apology for its defects. I am, Sir, with great respect Your very humble servant,
JOHN DICKINSON.
To my Opponents in the late Elections of Councillor for the County
of Philadelphia, and of President of the Supreme Executive
Council of Pennsylvania.
GENTLEMEN, — I address you as men of sense, candour and integrity. If I hereby over-rate the characters of some of you, they, no doubt, will undervalue mine. Such a kind of retalia- tion will correct the favour shewn them ; and while it gratifies them I shall not repine, for it will give me much less pain to be traduced by them, than to fail in the respect due to any man of merit among you.
The persons first described will regard truth and reason and will be pleased to find themselves furnished with facts and argu- ments, enabling them to disengage their minds from the preju- dices arising out of erroneously combined ideas, of which, thro' the frailty of our nature, party zeal is too frequently composed.
Before the late elections, I was diligent in affording you every advantage for carrying on your operations. I stood still — cast away all defence — and bared my breast to receive every blow, either openly or covertly aimed at me, and you yourselves could not complain, that " I declined receiving your whole weapon into my body." I wrote to the printers of this city,1
I Oct. 2, 1782.
SIR,
An attack upon my character having lately been made in your paper, which probably will be repeated, I most chearfully consent to your publication of every piece written against me, that shall be offered to you ; but I desire that nothing may be published in my defence or favour
I am, Sir, your very humble servant
JOHN DICKINSON. MR. BAILEY.
Oct. 2, 1782.
GENTLEMEN,
An attack having lately been made from the press upon my character, which probably will be repeated, I beg leave to inform you, that I am perfectly willing-
366 APPENDIX.
requesting them to publish every piece that should be offered them against me, but nothing for me, and I entreated my friends to rely on the votes that should be dictated by the judgment and consciences of a discerning and virtuous people. As to myself, I never at any time stepped out of my house, for the purpose of electioneering : and upon the morning of the elec- tion for the county, I went into the Delaware state, where I staid several weeks, and till within four days of the election of a president.
You might have perceived by this conduct, that I defied, beyond expression, all your efforts against me. Indeed I did. What was my support amidst the unprovoked war you waged upon me, or, what would have been my consolation, if you had succeeded, perhaps you may at some favourable opportunity hereafter discover. Certain it is, that, if you had succeeded, I should not have attempted to comfort myself, by asking for your attention.
In that case, the reputation of one of her private citizens might have been of little consequence to Pennsylvania. Now, a desire of being useful to her, in the station she has assigned me, and of vindicating those who have honoured me with their votes, call upon me to shew, that I am not the man I have been by some of you so laboriously represented.
As these motives will, I hope, even in your opinion, justify the measures I am taking, permit me to expect from your sin- cerity, that you will of course forgive my compliance with the necessity, which you have imposed upon me of making myself the subject of this address.
every piece written against me, and offered to you for publication, should be in- serted in your paper ; but I desire that nothing may be published in my defence or favour, Your compliance with this request will exceedingly oblige, Gentlemen,
Your very humble servant,
JOHN DICKINSON. MESS. HALL AND SELLERS.
A similar letter was sent to Messieurs Bradford and Hall, Messieurs Dunlap and Claypoole, and Mr. Oswald.
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION.
Many of you, gentlemen, were children, many of you strangers to this land, during a considerable period, in which I was rendering to it all the services within my power. Let those who were witnesses of my behaviour declare, whether, throughout my whole life I have been the warm, disinterested friend of the people the zealous and industrious asserter and maintainer of their rights and liberties, or the artful pursuer of private advantages.
I challenge my enemies to point out a single instance, where, either as a lawyer or as a member of assembly, I ever took a part in the least degree unfavourable to those rights and liberties. I go farther. I challenge them to point out the instances, while I practised at the bar, or had a seat in legisla- tion, where questions of moment to the public arose, and I was not found on the side of my country.
How long, how fervently, have numbers of you commended and loved me for my exertions, such as they were, in the cause of freedom? How lately, and violently, you have endeavoured to disgrace and ruin me, is sufficiently known. With what justice remains to be enquired.
Four charges are brought against me.
First. That I opposed the declaration of independence in Congress.
Secondly. That I highly disapproved the constitution of this state.
Thirdly. That I deserted my battalion, when it went into the field in December 1776, and the American cause, till the treaty with France, or, as some say, till the convention of Saratoga.
Fourthly. That I injured, or endeavoured to injure the con- tinental money, particularly, by writing a letter to my brother^
The first charge, as it is made, I deny : but I confess that" I opposed the making the declaration of independence at the time when it was made. The right and authority of Congress to make it, the justice of making it, I acknowledged. The policy of then making it I disputed.
To render this charge criminal, it should be shewn that I
368 APPENDIX.
was influenced by unworthy motives. It will not be enough to prove that I was mistaken : so far from it, that if it appears I was actuated by a tender affection for my country, I know my country will excuse the honest error.
When that momentous affair was considered in Congress, I was a member of that honourable body for this state. I thereby became a trustee for Pennsylvania immediately, and in some measure for the rest of America. The business related to the happiness of millions then in existence, and of more millions who were unborn. I felt the duty and endeavoured faithfully to discharge it.
Malice and envy must sigh and confess, that I was among the very first men on this continent, who by the open and de- cided steps we took staked our lives and fortunes on our coun- try's cause. This was done at an sera of the greatest danger, as it was unknown how far we should be supported. In this point, no reserve, no caution was used by me ; and, tho' marked out by peculiar circumstances for the resentment and vengeance of our enemies, if they had succeeded, I frankly pledged my all for her freedom.
Thus far I had a right to go, whatever I ventured, for I was risking only my own. But when I came to deliberate on a point of tfie last importance to you and my other fellow citi- zens, and to your and their posterity, then, and not till then, I became guilty of reserve and caution — if it was guilt to be more concerned for you and them than I had been for myself. For you and them I freely devoted myself to every hazard. For you and them I exerted all my cares and labours, that not one drop of blood should be unnecessarily drawn from American veins, nor one scene of misery needlessly introduced within American borders.
My first objection to making the declaration of indepen- dence, at the time when it was made, arose from this considera- tion : It was acknowledged in the debate, that the first cam- paign would be decisive as to the final event of the controversy. I insisted that the declaration would not strengthen us by one
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION. 369
man, or by the least supply — on the contrary, it might be construed to manifest such an aversion on our part, as might inflame the calamities of the contest, and expose our soldiers and inhabitants in general to additional cruelties and outrages — We ought not, without some prelusory trials of our strength, to commit our country upon an alternative, where, to recede woiild be infamy, and to persist might be destruction.
No instance was recollected of a people, without a battle fought or an ally gained, abrogating forever their connection with a great, rich, warlike, commercial empire, whose wealth or connections had always procured allies when wanted, and bringing the matter finally to a prosperous conclusion.
It was informing our enemies what was the ultimate object of our arms, which ought to be concealed until we had con- sulted other powers, and were better prepared for resistance — It would too soon confirm the charges of those in Great Britain who were most hostile to us, and too early contradict the defences made by those who were most friendly towards us. It might therefore unite the different parties there against us, without our gaining any thing in counterbalance. — And it might occasion disunion among ourselves, and thus weaken us.
With other powers, it might rather injure than &vail us — There was a certain weight and dignity in such movements, when they appeared to be regulated by prudence, that would be lost, if they were attributed to the emotions of passion. If politicians should be induced to ascribe the measure to the violence of this dictator, we might be deprived in their judg- ment of the merit of what they thought we had well done before, and of a just credit with them in future for our real force and fixed intentions — How such a judgment would operate was obvious.
Foreign aid would x not be obtained by the declaration, but by our actions in the field, which were the only evidences of our union and vigour that would be respected, — and by the
* This was confirmed by the conduct of France. 24
3?o APPENDIX.
sentiments statesmen should form upon the relative conse- quences of the dispute. This opinion was confirmed by many similar instances particularly in the war between the United Provinces of the Low Countries and Spain, in which France and England assisted the former, before they declared them- selves independent, which they did not do till the ninth year of the war. If it was the interest of any European kingdom or state to aid us, we should be aided without such a declaration. If it was not we should not be aided with it — On the sixth day of July, 1775, a year within two days before the declaration, Con- gress assured the people of America in an address, that,1 u Foreign assistance was UNDOUBTEDLY attainable" FACTS SUB- SEQUENT TO THAT DATE, WITH WHICH EVERY MEMBER WAS ACQUAINTED IT WAS NEEDLESS TO MENTION.
We ought to know the disposition of the great powers, be- fore such an irrevocable step should be taken ; and, if they did not generally chuse to interfere, how far they would permit any one or more of them to interfere. The erection of an In- dependent Empire on this continent was a phenomenon in the world — Its effects would be immense, and might vibrate round the globe — How they might affect, or be supposed to affect old establishments, was not ascertained — It was singularly disre- spectful to France, to make the declaration before her sense was known, as we had sent an agent expressly to enquire, " whether such a declaration would be acceptable to her;" and we had reason to believe he was then arrived at the court of Versailles — Such precipitation might be unsuitable to the circumstances of that kingdom, and inconvenient — The measure ought to be delayed, till the common interests should be in the best manner consulted, by common consent. Besides, the door to accom- modation with Great Britain ought not to be shut, until we knew what terms could be obtained from some competent p0wer — Thus to break with her, before we had compacted with another, was to make experiments on the lives and liberties of
1 Journals of Congress, Vol. I. Page 147.
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION. 37*
my countrymen, which I would sooner die than agree to make; at best, it was to throw us into the hands of some other power, and to lie at mercy ; for we should have passed the river, that was never to be repassed — If treated with some regard, we might yet be obliged to receive a disagreeable law tacked to a necessary aid. This was not the plan we should pursue. We ought to retain the declaration, and remain as much masters as possible of our own fame and fate — We ought to inform that power, that we were filled with a just detestation of our oppressors; that we were determined to cast off for ever all subjection to them ; to declare ourselves independent ; and to support that declaration with our lives and fortunes — provided that power should approve the proceeding; would acknowledge our independence, and enter into a treaty with us upon equitable and advantageous conditions.
True it is, that we have happily succeeded, without observing these precautions ; and let my enemies triumph in this conces- sion, when they shall have produced an example from history to equal the justice, wisdom, benevolence, magnanimity, and good faith, displayed by his most Christian majesty, in his con- duct towards us. Till then, at least, let me be pardoned for having doubted — whether there was such a monarch upon earth.
Other objections to making the declaration, at the time when it ivas made, were suggested by our internal circumstances. To me it seemed, that, in the nature of things, the formation of our governments, and an agreement upon the terms of our confed- eration, ought to precede the assumption of our station among sovereigns. A sovereignty composed of several distinct bodies of men, not subject to established constitutions, and those bodies not combined together by the sanction of any confirmed articles of union, was such a sovereignty as had never appeared. These particulars would not be unobserved by foreign king- doms and states, and they would wait for1 other proofs of
1 See this confessed in the French " Observations on the Justificative Memorial of the Court of London."
372 APPENDIX.
political energy, before they would treat us with the desired attention.
With respect to ourselves, the consideration was still more serious.
The forming of our governments was a new and difficult work. They ought to be rendered as generally satisfactory to the people as possible — When this was done, and the people perceived that they and their posterity were to live under well- regulated constitutions, they would be encouraged to look for- ward to confederation and independence, as compleating the noble system of their political happiness — The objects nearest to them were now enveloped in clouds, and therefore those more distant must appear confused. That they were indepen- dent, they would know ; but the relation one citizen was to bear to another, and the connection one state was to have with another, they did, could not know. Mankind were naturally attached to plans of government, that promised quiet and security under them. — General satisfaction with them, when formed, would be indeed a great point attained ; but persons of reflection would perhaps think it absolutely necessary, that Congress should institute some mode for preserving them from the misfortune of future discords.
The confederation ought to be settled before the declaration of independence.1 Foreigners would think it most regular — The weaker states would not be in so much danger of having disadvantageous terms imposed upon them by the stronger — If the declaration was first made,2 political necessities might urge on the acceptance of conditions, that were highly dis- agreeable to parts of the union. The present comparative cir- cumstances of the 3 states were now tolerably well understood ; but some states had very extraordinary claims to territory, that if admitted in a future confederation, as they might be, the
1 This has been since proved, by France urging, as she has done, the completion of the confederation.
3 This has since actually happened.
3 The word "States" is used here as most familiar, tho' not used in the debate.
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION. 373
terms of it not being yet adjusted all idea of the present com- parison between them would be confounded — Those states, whose boundaries were acknowledged, would find themselves sink in proportion to the elevation of their neighbours. Be- sides, the unlocated lands, not comprehended within acknowl- edged boundaries, were deemed a fund sufficient to defray a vast part, if not the whole, of the expences of the war. These ought to be considered as the property of all the states, acquired by the arms of all. For these reasons the boundaries of the states ought to be fixed before the declaration, and their respective rights mutually guarantied ; and the unlocated lands ought also, previous to that declaration, to be solemnly appro- priated to the benefit of all the states: for it might be ex- tremely difficult, if not impracticable, to obtain these decisions afterwards. Upon the whole, when things should be thus deliberately rendered firm at home, and favourable abroad, then let America
" Attollens humeris FAMAM, et FATA nepotum"
advance with majestic steps, and assume her station among the sovereigns of the world.
Thus to have thought, and thus to have spoke, was my offence, gentlemen, on the subject of independence. Do you condemn me for thinking as I did, or for speaking as I thought ? Could the former be a crime ? and was not the latter a duty ? What title of infamy would have been adequate to my guilt, if, entertaining the sentiments I did, and entrusted as I was, any consideration could have prevailed upon me to suppress those sentiments on a point of such eventful moment to my country? Was I by her placed in Congress, to re-echo the words of others, or to exercise my judgment and obey my conscience, in deciding upon the common welfare ?
A powerful consideration was not wanting, to tempt me into a swerving from the rule ever prescribed to myself — that of regarding the general good with singleness of heart.
It was my misfortune to have acquired some share of repu-
374 APPENDIX.
tation ; for the injuries done my country had occasioned it. Her love I valued as I ought, but not as much as I valued herself. I knew, and told Congress, that I was acting an un- popular part in the debate upon the declaration ; and I desired that illustrious assembly to witness the integrity, if not the policy of my conduct.
What other motive can you suspect that I had for this beha- viour ? Compare it with my preceding and following actions. Though I spoke my sentiments freely, as an honest man ought to do, yet, when a determination was made upon the question against my opinion, I received that determination as the sacred voice of my country, as a voice that proclaimed her destiny, in which, by every impulse of my soul, I was resolved to share, and to stand or fall with her in that plan of freedom which she had chosen. From that moment, it became my determination ; and I cheerfully contributed my endeavours for its perpetual establishment.
Have you forgot, gentlemen, this remarkable circumstance, that within a few days, to the best of my remembrance, within a week, AFTER tlie declaration of independence, I was the only member of Congress that marched with my regiment to Elizabeth Town against our enemies, then invading the state of New York, and continued in actual service there, daily in sight of them, every moment exposed, and frequently expect- ing upon intelligence received to be attacked, during the whole tour of duty performed by the militia of this city and neigh- bourhood.1
Be pleased to decide, what was my motive for this conduct. Be pleased also to consider what is the reason, why none of your writers, in the multitude of their publications against me, have ever mentioned, or even given the least hint of this fact. Don't you really believe, that, if it was thought by them only a trifling circumstance in my favour, they would have taken some notice of it, and, with one of their witty turns, have consigned
1 [Mr. Dickinson was in error: Colonel McKean commanded a regiment at the same time while delegate from Delaware. C. J. s.]
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION. 375
it over to contempt ? Don't you really believe, it was thought by them a strong proof of my devotion to the independence of America when once it became the resolution of America — a proof which they wish never to be remembered in Pennsylvania — and a clear demonstration that all my arguments, concerning the time of making the declaration, were in my judgment and conscience done away, and were of no more use, after it was made, than the rubbish caused in erecting a palace ? Reasons that were proper in a debate, were useless after a decision ; and the nature of tfiese evinces that they opposed only the time of the declaration, and not independence itself.
That event has proved, that the national council was right ; and may others learn, by my instance, to venerate the wisdom collected in that august body, as they ought to do. There is a light in that constellation, sufficient to direct the vessel freighted with the fortunes of America, through the tempes- tuous ocean upon which she sails, safe in the wish'd for port — if the people will but be guided by it.
Is it an incredible thing with you gentlemen, that a man might desire the declaration to be deferred, and yet heartily maintain it after it was made ! If so, what do you think of those men, who opposed the declaration in Congress as earn- estly as I did, and now hold the highest posts under the United States, or some of them, are possessed of their utmost confi- dence, and discharge their respective duties with distinguished honour to themselves, and advantage to America? What do you think of numbers of brave officers in our army, who wished the declaration to be deferred, and yet, from the instant it was made, and ever since have, under a load of difficulties, traversed different regions of this continent, freely to proffer their blood for its support ?
'The second charge brought against me is, that I highly dis- approved the Constitution of this state. So I did ; for I thought it unnecessarily expensive, and not as well calculated as it might
1 Freeman 's Journal, Wednesday, January 8, 1783.
37^ APPENDIX.
have been, for permanently securing and advancing the hap- piness of the people. I confess my anxiety was extreme, that such a constitution should be framed as would be most likely to secure and advance that happiness. The observations that have been made to shew that I was bound by obligations of honesty and love of country, to speak my real sentiments on the declaration of independence, are applicable here also ; — for this was a business too of vast importance to Pennsylvania. Would you, gentlemen, have advised me to observe a timid, contemptible silence, or a base, treacherous advocation of the opinions of others, while the affair was open to deliberation, discussion and dispute ? Would you have had me to disgrace the uniform tenor of a life employed in opposing, without dis- tinction, under the victorious banners of truth and freedom, the most formidable parties that this country ever beheld, whether headed by factious leaders in assembly, by proprieta- ries or by kings — when in my judgment the measures tended to the detriment of the public ? No. Men of sense, candour and integrity, would not have required so humiliating a prosti- tution. On this account I thank my accusers for this charge. I thank them for it on another account. Dont you perceive that this charge is utterly inconsistent with the foregoing one — of my not being a true friend to the independence of America ? If I was an enemy to our independence, as my accusers repre- sent me, why my great concern about a constitution for Penn- sylvania ? If I was the enemy to independence I have been de- scribed, my views and thoughts must have been engaged, and my hopes extended to a totally different purpose, that is, the subversion of independence. The constitution of Pennsylva- nia would, in that case, have been an object of no consequence with me. If I had been under the infatuation my accusers impute to me, I must have flattered myself that the constitu- tion, let it be what it might, would be of short duration, and therefore of little moment — and of course, that I need not trouble myself about it.
On the contrary, no man gave plainer proofs than I did, that
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION. 377
I looked upon the framing a constitution, as a work of perpe- tuity, and therefore of prodigious moment. No man gave plainer proofs than I did, that I considered the happiness of myself and my posterity, as involved in the happiness of Pennsylva- nia, and the whole deeply interested in the constitution that was then to be formed. Yet these proofs of these sentiments are thundered in the ears of Pennsylvania as crimes, against her affectionate, faithful and dutiful son, citizen and servant. How shall I defend myself against adversaries, the magic of whose malice thus converts those actions, which I hope and humbly trust, Heaven itself approves, into transgressions? Poor is my chance indeed! if, as they insultingly suppose, the people of Pennsylvania are grown such wild enthusiasts as to receive their AL-CORAN for the gospel of truth. Diffi- cult to be sure must be my contest with combatants who, not only like Proteus " others and yet the same" attack me in a variety of forms, but with superior dexterity shift my charac- ter too, as they please. One week they declare my life to be blameless. The next, even an expression of reverence for re- ligion becomes reproachful. One day they generously adorn me with a brilliant cluster of virtues. The next, they frugally revoke the liberal donation : and as their powerful pens pre- scribe, my reputation is alternately — to shine or fade. Let their inconsistencies be farther examined.
I have been charged with speaking against the sense of America, on the subject of independence. Now I am charged with speaking the sense of America. For — I spoke the sense of America respecting constitutions of government, when I disap- proved the constitution of this state. Compare this with the constitutions formed by the other states, and with the senti- ments delivered by Congress in their address to the inhabitants of the province of Quebec, and you cannot fail to observe the remarkable distinctions.
Another inconsistency in the proceedings of my accusers is this — That though they treat the disapprobation I expressed of the constitution, as an inexpiable offence in me, yet other
378 APPENDIX.
gentlemen who have committed the same offence, have not only been forgiven, but have been thought worthy of the highest offices in the state, and now possess your entire confi- dence. The honourable messieurs M'Kean, Reed and Bayard, will, I am persuaded, excuse my using their names on this oc- casion, they all highly disapproved the constitution of this state, and presided or spoke against it, at public meetings held for the purpose of obtaining alterations in it. If that impairs not your favour towards them, let it not impair your favour towards me. Be assured, that if I cannot serve you as well as they have done, I will with the strictest fidelity, try to serve you as well : and your kind acceptance of my actions, as it will be a valuable reward, so it will be a great encouragement to the utmost exertions I can possibly bear for promoting your welfare.
Let us revere our common parent, Pennsylvania, whose name has gone forth with distinguished honours into the world — Honours which it is our duty to maintain. Let us abhor to disturb her peace by notes of discord, or to violate her fame by a war of reproaches. Let us forbear to wound one another : and brethren as we are, let us pour all our combined resent- ments, where justice and policy so plainly point them — upon the heads of our common foes. Let our harmony be their confusion, and our wisdom prove their folly.
Let us return to our old good humour, and benevolent inter- course of social offices among ourselves. Let us comply with the spirit as well as with the letter of the constitution ; and not brand each other with opprobrious epithets, for thinking dif- ferently on forms of government, any more than we do for thinking differently on forms of religion. Let there be no dis- tinction among us, but between those, on the one hand, who generously contend for the freedom, independence, and pros- perity of our country, and such on the other, as weakly wish or wickedly seek for a dangerous and dishonourable connec- tion with, or submission to the enemies of America, and the sacred rights of humanity.
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION. 379
Upon the whole, I beg leave to conclude this point with ob- serving, that the present constitution is now universally agreed to. If any alterations are ever made in it, there can be no doubt but they will be made in a constitutional way ; and I hope they will be only such as will be agreeable to all parties. Whether any are made or not, it is unquestionably the interest of all the citizens of Pennsylvania, that the business should be transacted in a calm, prudent manner. This is my wish ; and if I live to have any concern in it, shall be my endeavour : for I am per- fectly convinced, it will contribute more to our happiness, to join cordially together in supporting the present constitution, and deriving all the advantages from it which it can afford, than to be involved in civil dissentions, by attempts to obtain another, though the wisest men in the world should pronounce it to be a better.
1 The third charge brought against me is, That I deserted my battalion when it went into the field in December 1776, and the American cause, till the treaty with France, or, as some say, till the Convention of Saratoga.
This charge I totally deny.
When the associated militia of Pennsylvania was formed, for the defence of the liberties of America, it was agreed, that the battalions should be numbered and arranged in a particular manner, and this arrangement was approved by2 the general assembly. I had the honour of being elected colonel of the first battalion, and thereby the indisputed honour of command- ing the whole militia. Though sufficiently employed in the civil line, I cheerfully accepted this station of dignity and danger, and valued it at its high worth.
1 Freeman's Journal, Wednesday, January 15, 1783.
I am much obliged to the honourable Mr. Reed for giving me an early oppor- tunity of rectifying a mistake respecting him in your paper of the 8th inst. that gentleman having since assured me, " that he never highly disapproved the con- stitution, nor presided or spoke at any public meetings against it."
J. DICKINSON.
a April 5th, 1776. Votes of the Assembly, Vol. vi. page 706, &c.
38° APPENDIX.
How I valued it, this fact will prove. The Journals of Con- gress contain these minutes :
" Monday, February 12, 1776.
" A letter from General Lee, dated the Qth. instant being re- ceived, was read, wherein he informs, that a transport with troops was arrived at New York, that more might be expected, and therefore that a farther reinforcement was necessary to se- cure and defend that place ; whereupon,
"Resolved, That it be recommended to the convention or committee of safety of New Jersey, immediately to send de- tachments of their minute men equal to a battalion, under proper officers, to New York, there to be under the command of major general Lee.
" That it be also recommended to the committee of safety for Pennsylvania, immediately to send detachments of the four battalions of associators in Philadelphia to New York, there to put themselves under the command of general Lee."
" Tuesday, February 13, 1776.
" Resolved, That the detachments marching from Philadel- phia to New York, under the command of colonel Dickinson, be allowed for subsistence while on their march the sum of one dollar and one third of a dollar per week, for each of the privates and non-commissioned officers, and that the commissioned offi- cers be allowed in proportion according to the rations allotted to them, and that they receive the same pay as the four Penn- sylvania battalions, from the time they begin their march.
" That a committee of three be appointed to consider the best method of subsisting the troops in New York ; and what sum of money it will be necessary to send thither, and also what sum ought to be advanced to colonel Dickinson.
" The members chosen, Mr. Sherman, Mr. Duane and Mr. Wilson."
" Thursday, February 15, 1776.
" Information being received that general Clinton was gone from New York, the Congress came to the following resolution :
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION. 381
" The Congress have a proper sense of the spirit and patriot- ism of the associators of the city and liberties of Philadelphia, in cheerfully offering and preparing to march, in order to as- sist in the defence of New York ; but as the danger, which occasioned an application for their service, is at present over, Resolved, That their march to New York be suspended."
On this occasion, I had it in my choice as the first officer, to go to New York. I would not upon any consideration wave it, though it was only a command of detachments. I was at that time a member of Congress, and also of the general ASSEM- BLY, which last body was x then meeting upon business of great importance ; and I was solicited in the most pressing manner by many gentlemen of the committee of safety, to decline going with the detachments, as they were pleased to think it would be more proper I should be in the assembly when it met. Their repeated applications could not prevail upon me to alter the resolution I had taken. I appeal to the members of the committee, and particularly to Mr. Robert Morris, who was present, and earnest that I should attend the assembly, for the truth of what I now say.
I well remember what the brave, venerable conqueror of Kittaning said to me at the Indian Queen, for having thus used my right " on the approach of danger." — But the expressions were so favourable, that I would chuse they should be repeated by him, rather than by me.
At this period, and for a long time before, you know gen- tlemen that I was honoured with the esteem and confidence of Pennsylvania, in a very extraordinary manner. But, soon afterwards, some men, moved either through the warmth of their zeal, provoked by personal disputes which had happened in the course of affairs, or persuaded that my ruin might afford some advantage in raising themselves, began to sow suspicions concerning me, as averse to independence, and never gave me the least credit for THAT FIRM BUT TEMPERATE PLAN OF CONDUCT
1 It was adjourned to the 1 2th of February, and a Quorum met on the I4th of that month. Votes of the assembly, Vol. vi. page 662.
382 APPENDIX.
that had been absolutely necessary for bringing Pennsylvania, under her singular circumstances, undivided into the opposition against Great Britain, and that was still expedient for bringing her, without the * appearance of division, into ulterior measures. What that plan was, and what my share in forming and exe- cuting it, Mr. Charles Thomson, the worthy secretary of Con- gress, can fully declare.
By whatever motives my adversaries were influenced, they were indefatigable and successful. A new mode was found out for degrading me from the command of the militia of Pennsyl- vania. A meeting of officers and privates was held in July at Lancaster; and while I was consulting with a committee of Congress, the committee of safety, and some officers, and forming plans for the public defence, two brigadiers general were put over my head.
You have seen, gentlemen, how I valued this post, while possessed of it ; and do you imagine I could be thus deprived of it, without feeling some pangs ? I had indubitably mani- fested my readiness to meet the danger annexed to it. Why, then, was the honour annexed to it, and unsullied by me, to be torn from me? As to sufficiency — I was learning, and willing to learn, how to acquit myself in the office with advan- tage to my country. Here I wish to be perfectly understood. I am not contending for the meed of military merit. Enough it is for me, if, when acting in that line, I have done my duty as I ought to have done.
I felt the stroke, as, I believe, it was designed I should. Im- mediately afterwards, upon a field day, I took the opportunity of speaking to my battalion on the situation of public affairs ; and in my address mentioned the undeserved indignity that had been offered me, and my sense of it — But added, that as we were soon to go into service, my affection for them, and my attachment to the common cause, should prevail over other
1 It was considered as a point of vast importance, at that critical period, to avoid the appearance of divisions in Pennsylvania; as such a circumstance would greatly encourage our enemies to persist in their oppressive measures.
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION. 383
sentiments, and I would perform with them the expected tour of duty.
The call into service was made on the day of the declaration of independence, in the following manner :
"In CONGRESS, Thursday , July 4, 1776.
" Resolved, That the delegates of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, be a committee to confer with the committee of safety of Pennsylvania, and the committee of inspection and observation for the city and liberties of Philadelphia, and the field officers of the battalions of the said city and liberties, on the best means of defending the colonies of New Jersey and Pennsylvania ; and that they be impowered to send expresses, where necessary."
I attended on this important occasion, the state of New York being then invaded, and that of New Jersey expecting to be invaded ; and I appeal to the members of Congress, the officers and other gentlemen, who met in the conference held in the State House, if I did not urge the prudence and necessity of making the call GENERAL — So ready was I tho' treated in the manner that has been mentioned, to meet danger in support of independence.
The idea of a general call was adopted, and the committee of Congress made the following report :
"/« CONGRESS, Thursday ; July 4, 1776.
" The committee of Congress appointed to confer with the committee of safety of Pennsylvania, the committee of inspec- tion and observation for the city and liberties of Philadelphia, and the field officers of five battalions of the said city, reported, that they have had a meeting with the committee and officers aforesaid, and have agreed to the following resolutions, viz.
" That all the associated militia of Pennsylvania (excepting the counties of Westmoreland, Bedford and Northumberland) who can be furnished with arms and accoutrements, be forth- with requested to march, with the utmost expedition, to Tren- ton, (except the militia of Northampton county, who are to
APPENDIX.
march directly for New Brunswick) in New Jersey ; and that the said militia continue in service, until the flying camp of ten thousand men can be collected to relieve them, unless they shall be sooner discharged by Congress." &c.
The militia immediately prepared themselves and began their march, some, and among the rest my battalion, for Elizabeth Town.
I marched with them, though in such a weak state of health, that when I reached Trenton I was obliged to rest there a day, and then get a carriage to finish the journey, being unable to travel further on horseback. My brother, and colonel Jacob Morgan who accompanied me, are witnesses to these circum- stances.
Soon after I arrived at Elizabeth Town, the command at that post devolved upon me, which I retained during all the time I was there, general, then colonel Smallwood politely declining to accept it when he came, as he expected to remain only a little while with us. Except during his short stay, I had only militia and some riflemen with me. Part of the British army,1 composed of regular veteran regiments, was then in force on Staten Island, directly opposite to the place where we lay.
My persecutors in Philadelphia remembered me at Elizabeth Town Point. I had not been but ten days in camp,2 when I was turned by them out of Congress, into which I had been brought at the beginning of the contest,3 October the i/th, 1774, in OPPOSITION to the efforts of those men, who, then and always my foes, have since avowed their enmity to America. So MUCH ALIKE do traytors to their country, and some sort of patriots, think of me.
1 The rest of the army and their fleet lay, I believe, about twelve or fourteen miles further off.
2 July 20th, 1776.
3 I had been unanimously recommended by the committee that met at Carpen- ters Hall, for Pennsylvania, to the general assembly, to be by them appointed a deputy in Congress; but had been kept out, by the influence above mentioned, from its meeting on the 5th. of September, till October, when the demands of the people prevailed over all further opposition.
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION.
Yes ! while I was exposing my person to every hazard, and lodging every night within half a mile of hostile troops that the members of the convention at Philadelphia might slumber and vote in quiet and safety, they ignominiously voted me, as un- worthy of my seat, out of the national senate.
VIRTUE ! Thou art not but a name. — For thou wert my com- forter in that severe season of private and public afflictions, when my country re-wounded a bleeding heart, frowned on my humbly-faithful love, — and spurned me into the dust. One dreadful kindness, Providence was pleased to mingle with my distresses. The best, — the tenderest of parents, did not live - to behold her dishonoured son.
This shock I also bore — and " faultered not on the approach of danger" to face my " foreign enemies," for the protection of— my " domestic enemies." x
So satisfied was I with this duty, that I TOOK UNCOMMON PAINS, and MADE STRENUOUS EXERTIONS that I might CONTINUE in immediate danger.
2 To their excellencies the president of Congress and the governor of New Jersey, to generals Smallwood and Gist, colonels 3 Swoope, Grub, Donaldson, and every other officer who was present in that tour of duty, I appeal for their decla- ration what was my behaviour during that whole period. One defect I labour under, in recollecting which, some of you, gen- tlemen, will, I doubt not, drop a tear. I cannot appeal to — a Mercer. Neither can I appeal to a Piper,4 who would have
1 The temper of my mind, at this period, may perhaps appear from a letter written to me by the secretary of Congress, in answer to one from me. In this letter, now before me, dated August 16, 1776, and addressed to me, at Elizabeth Town, are these expressions : — " I know the uprightness' of your intentions; and may that Divine Providence, which has hitherto so signally appeared in favour of our cause, and in which I know you place your confidence, protect and preserve you from danger, and restore you, not to your ' books and fields,' but to your country, and to the honours of your country, to correct the errors which I fear," &c.
2 Freeman's Journal, Wednesday, January 22, 1783.
3 The names of many other officers are not remembered, and therefore omitted.
4 Colonel James Piper, of Shippensburg, in Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, and afterwards of Hopewell township in the county of Bedford.
25
386 APPENDIX.
been as ready a witness in support of truth, as he was of freedom.
To the two first distinguished characters, whom I then almost daily saw, and to the colonels abovementioned, I partic- ularly appeal, as able to testify the earnest and repeated efforts made by me to appease the dissatisfactions of the militia, and persuade them to maintain their post, or march forward, as exigencies required — and with what success those efforts were made, even after part of the militia at a neighbouring post had broke up and returned home.
I have every reason to believe, that many inhabitants in our sister state of New Jersey, whose cause I particularly pleaded on those affecting occasions, preserve to this day a grateful remembrance of my cares and labours for their welfare.
Let those gentlemen — let every officer and private who were there, say — What was my behaviour, when, upon intelligence received by governor Livingston, and credited by us all, " that we were to be attacked early in the morning" — our troops were several times formed before day break to receive our enemies.
If any of you, gentlemen, still doubt whether I was willing to face danger in your defence and for the promotion of your happiness, turn to the records of the last Convention, where you will find these entries :
"Monday, August 12, 1776.
" A letter from colonel Dickinson, informing of the desertion of two soldiers of his battalion, was read, and ordered to be referred to the council of safety.
" Letters from general Mercer and colonel Dickinson, relative to the desertions of the militia, were, by order of Congress, laid
before this house."
"Friday, August 16, 1776.
" A letter was read, from colonel Dickinson, at the camp, complaining of the desertion of some of the associators, and praying that the convention would provide some remedy in that case : Whereupon the house agreed to the following reso- lutions, viz.
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION. 387
" Whereas this convention hath received information, that several associators of this state have deserted the camp in the face of the enemy, and returned home before the formation of the flying camp, and without the leave of the commanding officers, to the great danger of the public, and evil example to others : It is therefore
" Resolved ist. That all such associators as shall join their respective corps, at the camp from whence they came, in eight days from this date, with such arms and accoutrements as they may have brought away with them, shall be exempted from any punishment ; and those who neglect so to do, shall be appre- hended, and sent under a guard to the camp, there to be tried ; and in case of absconding, or concealing their arms, that they be advertised in the public news papers, and the reward of Three Pounds offered for apprehending every such person. And every associator, who shall hereafter desert his colours, shall be treated as those who have already deserted, and neg- lect to join their respective corps, agreeable to this resolve.
" Resolved 2d. That the commanding officers of the com- panies or battalions of the militia of this state, who are now on their march to New Jersey, do apprehend all deserters they meet on the road, and convey them under a guard to the camp.
" Resolved 3d. That notwithstanding the foregoing resolu- tions, it is not the intention of this convention to detain the militia unnecessarily from home : The associators are therefore assured, that as soon as the flying camp is formed, and the public safety will admit, they shall be permitted to return home."
Thus careful and diligent was I in watching over and guard- ing "the public safety," from "the great danger" that then threatened it. Great indeed it was ; and it is impossible, but that many of you must perfectly well remember to what a critical situation our affairs were thereby reduced. Let every man of you, gentlemen, not in taverns or at the corners of streets, amidst the circulating curses of disappointment, but in his closet,— lay his hand upon his heart, and seriously ask,
388 APPENDIX.
what it thinks of me ? You have brave men, sensible men amongst you. Several such, of you, were then in service. Is it not remarkable, that I, degraded and insulted as I was, should be the only man of Pennsylvania, who pursued and procured effectual measures, to remedy the evil that was destroying " the public Safety," and to keep the militia, and of course himself, still longer in a place of evident danger.
Look, if you please, at the Journals of Congress, of "Mon- day August 12, 1776,"* and you will find that my letter, laid before the Convention as above mentioned by order, was directed to general Mercer, and by him inclosed in his letter to Congress ; so that I had the honour of co-operating with him in the steps taken to retain the militia in service, till the flying camp could be formed. Let malevolence itself sit judge, and allot rne my share in the 2 most honourable dismission, which that brave man afterwards gave us.3
1 Vol. II. Page 306.
2 " GENERAL ORDERS.
" HEAD QUARTERS, ELIZABETH TOWN, igth. August, 1776.
" General Mercer desires his most grateful acknowledgements may be signified to the gentlemen associators of Pennsylvania, for the great attention they have paid to every part of military duty, while under his command — He is happy to have it in his power to relieve them, agreeable to order of convention, and hopes the quota of men to be furnished by such battalions will be speedily made up, in proportion to the numbers on duty here, that no delay may be given to the most honourable dismission of the remainder."
* Perhaps the zeal with which I acted for the service of my country, throughout this tour of duty, may be further evidenced by the following extracts, from some of a great number of original papers now in my possession, and all relating, to the business during that tour.
" SIR, — In consequence of your favour to-day, I have ordered ammunition for the troops at Elizabeth Town, also two pieces of cannon, with their arrangement of necessary articles. They will be with you to-morrow, and I will do myself the pleasure of then paying you my respects. I am very sorry you do not find people actuated with such a spirit as you wish. General Washington, under the dread of leaving this part of the country naked, through the desertion of such numbers, has directed me to send no more men, after colonel Alice's, to New York.
Signed H. MERCER.
To colonel John Dickinson, commanding at Elizabeth Town."
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION. 389
I remained with the militia to the end of our tour. To you, gentlemen, I appeal, if my conduct during that tour was not
" PERTH-AMBOY, July 29, 1776.
" SIR, — We have to-day had a court of enquiry of the commanding officers of battalions, to rectify, if possible, the disorders in the management of the com- missary's branch of business. — I have wrote to general Washington. — It will give me pleasure to remove the discontents. — In the mean time take what method appears to you most likely to answer that purpose.
Signed and addressed as before . . . and thus endorsed by myself soon after receiving it. . . .
" Procured the troops stationed here to be satisfied with their provisions.
"J. D." " PERTH-AMBOY, July 30, 1776.
" SIR, — I enclose you a copy of what the officers determined on yesterday, relative to the rations. — I have this morning received instructions from head quarters, to have proper boats built, for the purpose of transporting troops with safety and expedition. — I am told that captain Manuel Eyres, of your regiment, would be a very proper person to direct this business. — We should have at least twenty of them prepared. — The service requires that we should as speedily as possible set about this matter. — After consulting with captain Eyres, you will be able to furnish me with such hints as may greatly expedite the service.
" I am, Sir, your most respectful and your obedient servant,
"HUGH MERCER."
Directed as before.
Thus endorsed by me. — "July 30, 1776, I took all the necessary steps on this letter — collected a dozen of the most proper persons — conferred with general Liv- ingston and them, — procured all the information I could and sent captain Eyres
and Mr. Joshua Mercereau, July 3 1st, to general Mercer for his final orders
Wrote so to him at large, some material intelligence I had received concerning the weak guard on Newark Bay — Sent him the best map of Staten Island that has yet been made, which I procured Mr. Mercereau to make.
" The design was, an attack on Staten Island." "J. D."
" WOODBRIDGE, AugUSt 3, 1776.
« SlR, — The account you gave me of the disposition of battalion hath
appeared, the more I think of it, the more alarming. — That no inconsiderate step may be taken, I have had the opinion of the field officers and others here, on the occasion — they join unanimously in opinion with me, that the orders issued last week, relative to such of the associators as should presume to desert the service of their country at this critical time, ought to be enforced."
Signed and directed as before.
"PERTH-AMBOY, August n, 1776.
" SIR,— I received your favour by Mr. Brown, and in consequence of your intelligence have sent off an express with letters, one to the convention of New
39° APPENDIX.
universally approved. I confide in your candor, for the substi- tution of another expression.
I retained my post of colonel for some time after my return, at the solicitation of the officers, who were in hopes that a
Jersey, acquainting them of the desertion of numbers of the Pennsylvania militia, and desiring them to order out their militia, to guard the ferries and take other effectual steps to secure the deserters — the other to Congress advising them
of the unhappy condition of the militia, and desiring them to take such
steps as might seem necessary on the occasion, as these parts were like to be left exposed to the enemy.
In consequence of a requisition from general Washington, I have ordered a number of troops to New York — Colonel Miles with about 700 riflemen, marches this day — Colonel Atlee, with his battalion and a number more, will march tomorrow. — To facilitate their march, I have thought some might be passed over in boats from Crane's ferry to Brown's ferry, on Hackinsack — therefore all the boats that can be had up the river should be collected."
Signed and directed as before.
Thus endorsed by me — " This letter was received on the loth, of August, 1776, therefore dated wrong — consulted the committee on the measure proposed, who disapproved it. — Acquainted general Mercer jwith the reasons."
" PERTH-AMBOY, August n, 1776.
" SIR, — I had intended to have ordered col. Grubs battalion of Lancaster county, to New York — but I have ordered him to Elizabeth town. You will use your utmost address to induce the militia to perform their duty at this critical time, when the fate of America is so near being determined. — Col. Grub is very willing to go anywhere. — I have desired him to consult with you on the defence of the Jersey shore. — Be so good to point out to him the necessity of strong guards on Bergen Neck."
Signed and directed as before.
" PERTH-AMBOY, August n, 1776.
« SIR, — I wrote to you a few hours ago, that Colonel Grub, would march with his battalion for Elizabeth Town, tomorrow morning, which I hope will be time enough to reinforce your post. — This morning I wrote to your brother, the gen- eral, to take the most, effectual measures to co-operate with us."
Signed and directed as before.
«SiR, — The company seemed determined to go off tomorrow morning. —
Their going will, in my opinion, be followed by the first battalion, and the rest. — The present is a matter of infinite consequence. — If colonel Dickinson will give his sentiments to the battalion this afternoon, I am convinced it would be effectual in quieting the present disturbance."
Letter from an officer to me.
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION. 39*
better disposition towards me would succeed. At length, on the 28th of September, 1776, the Convention that had been summoned for the * express purposes of forming a new govern- ment, appointing delegates in congress, and a council of safety," stepped unnecessarily beyond the purposes marked out for them, by those who called them, and confirmed the two brig- adiers over me. The next day but one, I resigned in writing my command of the first battalion.
Even after this resignation, I would still have accepted the command again, If I could have perceived any symptoms of a relaxation in my favour. But it was evident that too many2 minds were inflamed and hardned. Public affairs were managed, and in my opinion were likely to be managed, in this state, in such a manner, that I thought I saw a fierce authority impend- ing over it. Such a command, under rulers in such a temper, was a " danger" I did not chuse to encounter. My honour had been repeatedly wounded by them. They might destroy it. An error, or even a misfortune in my military capacity,
1 Minutes of the conference of committees, held at Carpenter's Hall — Pages 36 and 41.
3 I was chosen a member of the first assembly after the constitution was formed, and in compliance with the declared sense of the county of Philadelphia, which had done me the honour of electing me, I made the following proposal in behalf of myself and others, to the members who were met on Wednesday, the 27th. of November 1776 — "We will consent to the choice of a speaker, to sit with the other members, and to pass such acts as the emergency of public affairs may re- quire, provided, that the other members will agree to call a free convention for a full and fair representation of the freemen of Pennsylvania, to meet on or before the day of January next for the purposes of revising the constitution formed by the late convention, and making such alterations and amendments therein as shall by them be thought proper — and making such ordinances, as the circum- stances of affairs may render necessary ; provided, also, that no part of the said constitution be carried into execution by this assembly — and provided, that this assembly shall be dissolved before the day to be appointed for the meeting of the convention."
This proposal was rejected. — The behaviour of some persons on that day, and the disagreeable circumstance of entering into contests scarcely to be avoided with gentlemen I had for a long time esteemed, added to what had passed before, induced me to decline any further opposition to the constitution— and I retired from the assembly.
39 2 APPENDIX.
might have drawn down upon me the vengeance of those, who were sufficiently incensed and fixed in dominion to wreak it upon me with impunity, perhaps with applause to themselves. I had reason to be convinced, that it was determined to drive me into desperation and perdition. My enemies were now in full possession of power in Pennsylvania, and her former favourite was reduced to a disregarded thing, fit only to sig- nalize their military and political sagacity, or to receive orders from lately inspired patriots, or their full-faith'd disciples. Ex- cuse me, gentlemen, if I did not foresee that I should be treated with the justice and humanity, which they have since manifested towards me.
I could not consent to stand like a chopping-block before them, to be hack'd by their tomahawks into such shape as might gratify their capricious fancy. I resolved, in the first place, never to be accountable to such men for any military command — secondly, to seek my fortune and a kinder usage in another state — and thirdly, to serve as a volunteer in the next call of the militia of the city and neighbourhood, if it should happen before my departure.
Several unhappy events afterwards took place, that hastened the execution of the second resolution. The British army, after manceuvering some time in New Jersey, advanced to the Delaware.
On the tenth day of December, 1776, it was generally ap- prehended they would immediately take possession of Phila- delphia. I knew that Congress would adjourn to some other place, and on the twelfth they did adjourn to Baltimore. I thought it necessary to remove my wife and child farther from town ; and that it was most advisable that they should go to my farm in Kent, about eighty miles from this city. They being thus placed out of immediate danger, I should be at liberty, and my mind relieved from so much of my anxiety on their account, that I could join the militia in the manner be- fore mentioned. In pursuance of this plan, I wrote to a rela- tion in Philadelphia, requesting him to ride up to my house at
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION. 393
Fair-Hill, and attend his cousin, and the child, in their journey. He was so kind as to come up directly. The carriage was at the door, and nothing remained, but to part. A scene ensued, that may be better imagined than described.
Any person of humanity will easily conceive, what I felt in such circumstances. I yielded. The accounts received of the behaviour of the enemy, in their progress through the state of New Jersey, were so shocking and so x true, that I should have been guilty of inexpressible cruelty, in exposing a wife and infant to the outrages of a soldiery intoxicated with success — more especially, as the part I had taken, from the very be- ginning of the controversy, might have drawn distinguishing insults and injuries on those who were connected with me. I believe there was not one man in or near Philadelphia at that time, that had acted as publicly in the common cause as I had done, who did not think himself indispensably bound to re- move to some place of greater security, those dear and helpless persons, who looked to him alone for care and protection, and whose danger was increased by his own conduct. I owed it to my country — to involve them in such a danger. I owed it to them — to make a reasonable provision for their safety. I made the only one which I could then devise.
We left home that afternoon, and, as I expected the direct road and the ferry between this city and Chester, would be much crowded, I passed the Schuyl-kill about a mile above the falls. The next day but one I reached Chester, and lodged there, where the president of Congress also staid that night, with his lady, and an infant not a fortnight old — a circumstance, that so evidently shewed the necessity of quitting the neigh- bourhood of Philadelphia expeditiously, even in the judgment of one of those who best knew the situation of our affairs, as sufficiently justifyed the care I was taking of my family.
On the sixteenth of December, I arrived at my house in Kent, where my tenant spared me two rooms; and I was enough employed in procuring necessaries for those I carried with me.
1 Journals of Congress. Vol. III. page 143, &c.
394 APPENDIX.
'In the year 1777, I executed in the Delaware state, what I had intended to do in Pennsylvania. I became a private in captain Stephen Lewis's company ; and in that capacity served, with my musket upon my shoulder, during the whole tour of duty performed that summer by the militia of that state, when the British army landed at the Head of Elk, and was advancing towards this city. Please to recollect that the convention of Saratoga was in the latter part of October, 1777. I served also in another manner — in riding from one place to another, to collect arms and ammunition. For my zeal2 and diligence on those occasions, I appeal to major general Rodney and briga- dier general Collins, and for my good conduct through the campaign, to those gentlemen, and to general M'Kinley, who, though not present with that part of the militia with which I served, was yet acquainted with facts ; and particularly, being then president of the state, was so kind, in a letter to general Rodney, as to mention my serving as a private, after the honour I had borne, in very obliging terms.
So much pleased with my conduct was the present honora- ble, chief justice of this state, that as soon as the administra- tion, devolved upon him, as speaker of the house of assembly, by the captivity of the president, and the absence of the speaker of the legislative council, he immediately, in the beginning of October, 1777, sent me a commission of brigadier general of the Delaware state, inclosed in a letter written in the warmest ex- pressions of approbation, which I now have in my possession.
1 Freeman's Journal, Wednesday, January 29, 1783.
? A trifling circumstance will shew my zeal at that time. While the militia lay at Christiana Bridge, the enemy then in possession of Wilmington, the fort near the ferry, and the neighbourhood, we received intelligence that some ammunition, of which we were in great want, had been left in the ferry-house, on the New Castle side of the river. I immediately went to general Rodney, and offered, if he would give me a command of 50 men, to bring off the ammunition. He declined complying with the proposal, and, if I remember right, for this reason — that, as the enemy had been in possession of Wilmington for a day or two, it was very probable they had passed the river, and secured the ammunition. — To gen- eral Rodney I appeal for the truth of this fact.
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION. 395
That commission I afterwards resigned, on account of some objections relating to the militia and the militia laws, which I mentioned to the gentleman, who succeeded in the government.
But — need I mention any other proofs of my behaving prop- erly during my residence in the Delaware state, than the honours I received there.
Here, gentlemen, gratitude and concern for the public good, demand, that I take some notice of the ungenerous attempt to injure the dignity of a sovereign state, the ally of the greatest king in the world, for the poor purpose of hurting me.
Examine the conduct of that state, and you will find that it has been, throughout the war, as steady in the common cause as any other. — That it was exemplarily punctual in furnishing its quota of men and money, until particular circumstances, well known to you, and for which Congress themselves, I be- lieve make proper allowances, would not permit its exertions to correspond with its inclinations — and still, its exertions are upon a par at least with those of some other states. The prudence, vigour and integrity of its measures, you may judge of by these two instances. Early in February, 1781, the Del- aware state took the bold singular step, of sinking its whole quota of continental money by taxes in one year, and accord- ingly paid the quota into the continental treasury, with a con- siderable overplus, to provide for allowances that might be made by Congress to any of the southern states. By this single decisive operation, that state avoided all the embarrass- ments and expences which other states incurred by calling for the new money, founded on the resolutions of Congress in March, 1780, and exchanging it at great loss for the old — got rid totally of paper currency — and, at the session of the legis- lature in May following, declared, by act of assembly, gold and silver at their usual prices, therein ascertained, to be the " lawful money" of the state.
The Delaware state was also the first of the union, I believe, that introduced order into that chaos of politics and morals, in which strength and weakness, safety and ruin, virtue and
396 APPENDIX.
iniquity, strangely met together, and wrought in wild conjunc- tion— by stopping the rage of tender laws, and instituting equitable modes of adjusting, in all cases, the confusions that had been occasioned.
Yet it has been published to the world, by some of your writers, that the state is generally disaffected, or, as others ex- press it, that two of the three counties of which it consists, are disaffected.
Such authors are deceived, or mean to deceive. There are disaffected persons in the state ; and so there is in every state. But a majority of the people are well affected ; and the powers of legislation are now, and have been for several years, in the hands of as firm and determined friends to the independence of America, as any upon this continent. The former leaders of the disaffected have been expelled the state; and those who remain are in general a poor ignorant sett, and, in a political consideration, totally contemptible.
New Castle county, I understand, is graciously admitted to be a well affected county, because it bravely opposed the British army in its passage through it. So it is — and so it has proved itself, not only by that gallant act, but by every other part of its conduct. But, unluckily for my detractors, all my 4 honours in the Delaware state originated from New Castle county. Honours, thus derived, are, by their own consession, honours indeed. The members of that much esteemed county, though I have never yet had the happiness of residing in it, proposed me as a delegate to Congress in 1779, and I was chosen by every vote of both branches of the legislature. After serving in Congress, that county, in 1780, elected me a councillor ; and that same year nominated me for president, to which office I was raised unanimously by the two houses, in a full session.
How I behaved in that station — Whether I approved myself firmly attached to the true interests of the United States in general, and of that state in particular — Whether my measures inclined to the support of the active friends to our liberties —
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION. 397
Whether I preferred the welfare of the republic to every other consideration — or, whether I regarded my own emoluments, rather than more generous considerations — are questions, which, if your writers desire to have answered, I should be glad, if they would be so obliging as to apply to the people of the state.
Perhaps some of them are displeased at my accepting the office I hold in this state. I am under too many obligations, not heartily to forgive any expressions of such displeasure, which they will use — and they will pardon me, when they con- sider how earnestly I entreated to be excused from taking the presidency of that state, that I served a year, and that I could not avoid, without involving myself in exceedingly disagree- able circumstances, taking the presidency here.
There is another reflection, gentlemen, connected with this charge against the Delaware state, which is of too serious a nature to be passed over in silence. That state is a member of the union, and, though a small one, yet, from its situation, is of importance to the union. Do you think that your writers discover a proper respect for the common weal, when they represent in the newspapers, and in strong terms, that two thirds of that state, and all those in this who differ from you in some of their sentiments, that is, a majority of this, are de- voted to our enemies, are willing to renounce our indepen- dence, and desirous to return to the former subjection under Great Britain ? Is not this confirming, as much as they can confirm, the oft-told tales, that have, with such an odd vicissi- tude, enlightened and bewildered the house of commons and the British cabinet? Is not this attempting to realize the ignis fatuus, which their generals, chasing on northern moun- tains and on southern plains, have always found to elude their pursuit, till at last, tired with their wanderings, they have been content, instead of the flying meteor, to catch — captivity.
If the house of commons and the British cabinet so far believe such writers, as to be encouraged to continue this iniquitous war one year longer, or even to continue it so long
APPENDIX.
as to occasion the death of one fellow citizen more, than would otherwise fall, what will such writers deserve ? And it may be presumed, that they would think it rudeness to suppose they are not worthy of credit. If these men can distract the affairs of this state, or persuade our enemies that they are distracted, is it not worth considering, whom they mean thereby to serve ? and whether they are not inviting the war into the bowels of Pennsylvania ?
Before I conclude this part of my address, permit me, gen- tlemen, to ask, what is your opinion of that gallant, experienced veteran, major general John Armstrong, or of that worthy, brave officer, major general James Irvine? If you will allow me to answer, I will say, it is very high — for their merits appear to me to be universally acknowledged.
The former was appointed a brigadier general by Congress, March I, 1776, before, generals lord Stirling, Mifflin, St. Clair, and Stephen. The igth. of February, 1777, these four last mentioned gentlemen were elected major generals. The 4th. of April following, General Armstrong resigned his commis- sion, and on account of these promotions. He remained, I think, without any military employment, until his country called him into an elevated rank.
General Irvine was appointed a lieutenant colonel by Con- gress, November 25, 1775. July 29, 1776, major Wood was appointed a lieutenant colonel. September 7, 1776, lieutenant colonel Wood was appointed a colonel. Later in the fall of that year, lieutenant colonel Irvine was appointed a colonel, and, after trying to obtain a brevet of precedence from Con- gress, and not succeeding, he resigned in June, 1777. He remained, I believe, without any military employment, until his country called him into an elevated rank.
The affairs of America were then in an infirm state, and it was known that the British general and admiral meditated an invasion of Pennsylvania with a powerful army and fleet. Yet I have never understood, that either of those gentlemen was charged with " faultering on the approach of danger," or in the
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION. 399
least censured by you, or others, for his resignation, or for continuing without military employment, until they were pro- moted to their honourable and deserved commands of the militia.
Why then was it so criminal and shameful in me to resign ? What are the distinguished circumstances that acquit them with the honour due to them, and that condemn me to guilt and infamy ? They will pardon me, I am sure, for venturing, in refutation of this cruel attack, to form some kind of comparison between their cases and mine, and endeavouring to shelter my hunted fame under the cover of their unblemished characters. I select them from a number of instances, because they are so well known, and so much esteemed in Pennsylvania.
They both resigned BEFORE the treaty with France, and BEFORE the convention of Saratoga. Here our cases are alike. They remained, I believe, after their resignations, unemployed in a military line, till their appointments to be generals. In the critical campaign of 1/77, 1 bore my musket as a private. This, I hope does not make against me. I had been a member of Congress from the beginning of the controversy — entrusted again and again by that assembly with their most important affairs — and I had the command of the whole militia of Penn- sylvania from its establishment — though, indeed, with the title only of first colonel. These circumstances, I apprehend, will justify me in an attention to honor, as much as the rank of those gentlemen. The promotions over them were made in the regular mode of proceeding, by the representative sovereignty of the United States, under whom they served. The promotion over me was made in a manner that has never since been adopted, and by persons under whom I did not serve. This, I trust, will not operate against me. The members of Congress were not their enemies. Those who then reigned in Pennsyl- vania mine. This seems to incline the scale in my favour. They were, indeed, officers of regular troops — I, 'tis true, com- manded militia — but still our cases run parallel, unless my accusers will say, that honour ought not to be as much
4oo APPENDIX.
regarded by militia officers as by regular officers — which they will hardly say. They resigned at the first slight put upon them. I bore a first, and a second — and did not resign until the third. This surely will not be to my disadvantage. Whether either of these gentlemen was in actual service, in the rank they then respectively held, after the promotions they dis- approved, and after application for redress had been unsuc- cessful, I do not know — I was in actual service — in the only rank left me — for weeks after the first and second injuries done to me, " in the face of the enemy" — and in " great danger," as the x Convention that confirmed the brigadiers over me, and that turned me out of Congress, have un- guardedly left upon record —
Permit me also to ask, gentlemen, what is your opinion of the officers of our line, not at present in camp, who were pleased to confer upon me the distinguished favour of the address, that has been lately published? Don't you think, that they may be admitted as good judges of honour? Don't you believe, that they would rather have perished, than have stained their well-earned laurels, by addressing me as they have done, if they were not convinced that my conduct was justifiable in the judgment of men of honour?
Your opinion is surely favourable to the army, and to those gentlemen, who are so respectable a part of it. Their merits, you must acknowledge. For — their labours gave you ease — their wounds gave you safety — their poverty gave, not a few of you, wealth, and all of you, conveniences — and their valour gave you that quiet which some of you employ, so much to the advantage and reputation of your country, in abusing me.
2 The fourth charge brought against me is, That I injured, or endeavoured to injure the continental money, particularly, by writing a letter to my brother.
This charge I totally deny. In my journey to Kent, I left Chester the thirteenth of December, and lay that night at
* Minutes of the convention, page 66.
3 Freeman'1 s Journal, Wednesday, February 5, 1783.
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION. 401
New-Castle. The next morning just before I set out, I wrote a note to my brother, and sent it to Philadelphia, to be for- warded to him. It was there given to his black servant, who, being told he must get a pass, applied to the council of safety for one, to go to his master. They understanding he had a letter from me, demanded it — broke it open — sent the servant to goal, where he was kept two nights — and my new house, then lately finished, and in which I had not lived, was turned a hospital. The letter was in these words.
" Receive no more continental money on your bonds and mortgages — The British troops have conquered the Jerseys, and your being in camp, are sufficient reasons — Be sure you remember this — It will end better for you." Sealed and directed thus — " To Brigadier General Philemon Dickinson, at the American camp."
In order to judge of this advice, the circumstances that were known to me, and the motives that induced me to think it proper, should be taken into consideration.
I had before my eyes a number of facts, threatning imme- diate ruin to a brother. His dwelling house and landed estate were in that part of the country actually possessed by the British army : and he had let out money to persons residing in that part. I had seen a letter from him, in which he said, " he expected to suffer several thousand pounds damage by this event." A New Jersey gentleman of the first distinction, whose name I mentioned to the council of safety, had told me at Chester, the day before I wrote the letter, that he lodged one night at Bristol, in which place and its neighbourhood our army then was, and that the houses were so crouded, and things in such confusion ; that next morning almost every gen- tleman had lost his money, watch, hat, or some other article. My brother was then in a small army, retreating before a larger and victorious one. He was necessarily detained in the camp being the first brigadier general of the Jersey troops then with the army. His family were driven from home. First flying to Philadelphia, they were quickly obliged to take
26
402 APPENDIX.
refuge in Maryland, at a great distance from him. He had but one servant with him, and an improper one to be trusted with money. Were these circumstances to receive money in — when he had no way of securing it, and the moment after receiving it he might be called into action ?
But, why did I mention " continental money" only ? For these reasons — that debts were then paid in no other — and that his debtors resided in that part of New Jersey, of which the British were then possessed in force, where consequently that money would sink in value, and debtors who had submit- ted to the enemy, and renounced the American cause, might have crossed the river, on the banks of which he then was, and but a few miles from them, to pay off their debts with it, to a man who was risking his life in support of that cause. Indubitable it is, that in my letter I alluded to Jersey debtors only, where I knew he had let out money " on bonds and mortgages ;" because I mentioned " the British troops having conquered the Jerseys," and because his other debtors resided in Kent county on Delaware, above an hundred miles from him, and there was not the least likelihood that any of them would take so long a journey at such a season of the year, and venture with sums of money into a camp, in the face of an enemy, and in such a situation of affairs as then existed.
These were solid reasons then, that would have justified my brothers refusal of continental money at that time : reasons, that were not applicable to people in general, and therefore exempted him out of the common obligation to receive it — His being in camp, so as to be prevented from securing it — The indisputable superiority of the enemy, which was momentarily expected to be exerted against our army — the confusion and danger from some of our own people.
Why did the council of safety, by opening the letter, compel me to mention any other reason ? Little did they know me, if they supposed that I could be induced, by the difficulties to which they subjected me, to swerve one tittle from the truth. Some men wished the public to believe, that I apprehended,
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION. 403
when I wrote the letter, a great depreciation of the continental money — and that this apprehension was the sole cause of my writing it. I might have submitted to this construction, with- out detracting from my character either in respect to prudence or integrity. But, it was not the fact. I acknowledged that I did apprehend such a depreciation ; and that this apprehension had weight with me, in inducing me to write the letter. But I totally denied, and still deny, that this consideration would have moved me to write, if my brother had not been in so uncommon a situation as he then was.
By the very words of the letter, the caution is temporary, and limited to the case therein stated. If continental money had been offered to him in that case, he might have refused it, for reasons that would not have injured it. — On the other hand, if I had meant that he should refuse continental money gen- erally, I should have given him advice, that might not only have injured the money, but his reputation also.
Can any of you, gentlemen, be so prejudiced, as to think I would ever give him such advice ? Don't you believe the letter was dictated by brotherly affection ? Could he have adopted such advice, without the affair being discovered, and without drawing of course the public indignation upon him ? And is it credible that I should have consented to involve him in such a misfortune ? Would this have been to " end the better for him ?" If I had been capable of advising him to a dishon- ourable act, it surely would have been an act for the safety of his person, at that instant exposed to most imminent danger. Why then did I not advise him to resign his commission, and retire? The reason is obvious. I must have thought it, in his situation, dishonourable- I must have chosen — that he should have lost his life, rather than his character. Yet — my enemies would persuade the world, that I designedly advised my brother to a dishonourable action, that could not be con- cealed— in order to save a part of his estate — that is, that I was so stupid and so base, as to prefer the security of some of his property to his reputation.
404 APPENDIX.
In truth, I meant this, and no more — that my brother should decline receiving continental money, while he continued with so much hazard in camp, alluding particularly to his Jersey debtors ; being assured in my own mind, that such a conduct, under such circumstances, would not tend either to the injury of that currency or of his reputation — And many of you, gen- tlemen, I am convinced, will give me credit for this faithful adherence to the welfare of my country, in thus carefully and cautiously limiting my advice, at a time when I really appre- hended a depreciation of continental money. You will see other proofs of such an adherence, before I finish this address, that I hope will satisfy you all.
If any injury was done to the continental money by opening the letter I am not to blame. I mean not to reflect on the council of safety. Several of that body, who were then heated by the artifices that were practised, and entertained unfavour- able sentiments of me, I am persuaded are now my firm friends. If any who were of the council still continue my enemies, I forgive them. It is as certain the money was not injured by opening the letter, as it is, that I did not endeavour to injure it. It would be an insult on your understandings, to suppose you ignorant of the true causes of the depreciation of that money.
Allow me, however, to trace the consequences that would have followed, if the letter had reached my brother, as I intended. — In the first place, it was not binding upon him — it concerned his affairs — it related to no interest of my own — it was only advice from a brother to a brother — his judgment was to pass upon it — perhaps no such money might have been offered him — or, if it was, he might have thought proper to receive it — Why were not his honor and discretion to be con- fided in ? Are not his fidelity and meritorious services to his country universally acknowledged ? If offered and refused, the foregoing reasons were sufficient to justify him. In short, let the letter be supposed to have operated in any imaginable manner, according to its plain meaning, after coming to his
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION. 405
hands, and it is easy to perceive that the credit of the conti- nental money could not thereby have been drawn into ques- tion. My accusers have sense enough to understand these observations, and to feel their force : But, luckily for them, and unluckily to be sure for me, one circumstance appears against me — " There seems to be a consciousness that I was writino-
o
something blameable, from the letter not being signed."
It was a common way of writing to my brother. The writing proved the writer. In the present case, it could not possibly be my intention to conceal my being the author from any persons in Pennsylvania, if the letter should get into their possession ; for any one, acquainted with my writing, would know, on seeing the letter, that it was written by me, as well as if my name was subscribed to it. Indeed — I never expected it to fall into the hands of my Pennsylvania enemies — that was a strange event — much more probable was it, considering to what place it was addressed, that it would have fallen into the hands of my British enemies ; and a very little reflection will shew how improper it was, that a letter thus exposed should be signed with my name.
You must remember, gentlemen, how I was treated.1
1 When my letter was opened by the council of safety, I was in Kent. Upon hearing of their proceedings, I repaired to Philadelphia, went to the council, and demanded a public hearing. This I did not obtain. The letter being produced at the board, I instantly acknowledged it, and declared, that I would justify it. I mentioned to them most, if not all the circumstances, related in this part of my address, and required, that " they should declare as the sense of their board, that I was clear from all suspicion of intentions unfriendly to the cause of America, and that they would publish to the world, what they said to me in excuse for opening the letter, sending the servant to jail, and turning my house into a hospital."
This declaration was not made ; and I was called, by a particular accident, to return to Kent, from which place I wrote to them, again requesting the decla- ration. The following part of that letter, I hope, I shall be pardoned for pub- lishing, when such severe reproaches have been cast upon me.
" You may observe that I have not required any reparation from you for the damages, great as they are, you have done and are now doing to my property. Had it been necessary, I would cheerfully have opened my best house, and the best rooms in it, for the reception, and have cut down my best woods for the relief of such unhappy people as I have lately seen. But as fellow citizens you ought to
4o6 APPENDIX.
The letter was kept out of sight. Part, but not the whole, was published. The limitations prescribed in it were concealed — But, it was said that I had advised my brother to refuse con- tinental money generally — to throw up his commission — to join the enemy — that I was trying to pass the Delaware for that purpose, and that I had refused continental money. I have been informed by an officer of distinction that these stories reached the camp —
have regarded me as one of the last persons, on whom in equity such heavy con- tributions should be levied with indignity, by force : it having been my constant practice, during the whole course of my life, from the time I was first vested with a public character in Pennsylvania, to this day, specifically to give to public uses every sum of money as it became due to me, either as a member of assembly, a delegate in Congress, or an officer of the militia, except («) ,£121.8.6, as may appear by tracing the applications of the monies on the assignments in the several offices. Nor can the sum above particularized be said to remain in my hands, if other sums given by me to public uses should be taken into the account, without reckoning what I have spent in the public service.
" Another instance of the disinterestedness and singleness of heart with which I have endeavoured to serve my country is, that I never did, directly or indirectly, in the whole course of my life, ask or sollicit any post of profit for myself; and in the beginning of the last month, upon some reflection being made by a member of the meeting held in the State House, on the designs of those who opposed a majority of that body, I publicly declared to them, that in whatever manner the government should be regulated I (*>} never would bear any office in it.
(a) This sum happened to remain in my hands in the following manner. A worthy person who wanted his money, called upon me with a large account. I had been disappointed in receiving cash, and in part of payment I assigned to him a certificate for ^107. The other case was this. Having applied much the greatest part of my pay as colonel, by drawing an order in camp at Elizabeth Town, for a public use, well known to the officers of the first battalion, I never called for the residue. One day colonel Chevalier told me, he had received for me on that account .£14 18 6, or some such sum. I told him I did not intend to draw for it ; but now it was paid, I should be obliged to him if he would be so kind as to pay it to the overseers of the poor for the Northern Liberties, to be distributed among poor families in that township. He replied, that he supposed I meant families that were not chargeable to the township, and as that care did not relate to the office of overseers, perhaps they would think it too troublesome. I told him, I did mean such families, and, for the reason he had mentioned he might pay the money to me at any time that would be most convenient to him. He soon after sent it to me, not many days before I left home. This sum has been since applied to the use of the poor.
(6) This was my determination, having resolved to leave the state. In refusing to act under the present constitution at that time, I obeyed the instructions of the county of Philadelphia : By act- ing under it now, I obey the commands, which in a remarkable manner, and with an affection that does me honour, that same county has been pleased to give me. I declined the call into public office in this state for some time ; but at last it grew so strong and respectable, that I should have incurred a kind of criminality, if I had been disobedient to it.
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION. 407
The rest of the charges you already know to be false. As to the last, my conduct has been so singularly exact, that I hope, cruelly attacked as I have been, you will excuse me for being particular in my answer.
That money — when all my apprehensions were verified — issuing forth as an infection — leading like death weeping widows and orphans after it — while patriotism itself shud- dered at its success — and freedom scarcely could compensate for its injustice — I never refused.
Let the clippers and counterfeiters of truth come out of the holes, in which with conscious guilt they hide themselves to work, and produce the person, who will say that I ever denied or delayed to receive that money when offered to me, in any stage of its depreciation.
Not two hours before I left my home at Fair Hill, and not
" Being now scarcely able to hold my pen, I shall conclude, with requesting, that these circumstances may be seriously considered by you as additional evi- dence of the habitual purity of my intentions towards my country, and may, with those I have already personally offered, persuade you to desist from your (c) per- severance in an attempt to render me an object of public hatred and tumultuary violence, and thereby prevent any (<*) further trouble to yourself, or to
" Your injured humble servant,
"JOHN DICKINSON.
" KENT, January 21, 1777."
(c) I have been informed by a member of the council of safety, that though they sent a copy of my letter to the commander in chief, he never took any notice of it in his correspondence with the council. As it has been reported that the commander in chief wrote a letter to Congress, lamenting my defection from the American cause, I beg leave to say, that if his excellency had written such a letter, it should naturally have been attributed to the information received in camp concerning my conduct and designs, the substance of which information is mentioned in the Address. Whether, under these impressions, he wrote any private letter mentioning me, I know not — But I esteem myself warranted, on proper enquiry, in saying that his excellency never did write such a letter to Congress.
(d) This alludes to my intention, at that time, of addressing the public, as may appear by this other extract from my letter of January 21, 1777, to the council of safety.
" Do not believe, that I thus address you, because I fear and appeal to the public on the conduct of so formidable a body as you are. You might easily perceive when I saw you, that, confiding in my innocence, I defy your power, and if any of you bear me malice, I would have you assuredly to know, I defy that.
" I am certain, that no act of your board can so entirely vindicate me to the world, as a full detail of the whole affair. This advantage I am willing to wave ; and would readily consent to suffer something, though in my just defence, of touching upon points I wish to avoid, or even of diminishing that respect, whatever it is, that is at this time annexed to you."
4o8 APPENDIX.
four days before I wrote the letter to my brother, I received fifty pounds in continental money from Mr. John Nice, of the Northern Liberties. Having appointed the tenth of Decem- ber to receive upwards of three hundred pounds of that money from Samuel Hudson, of this city, on that day I left my house. That night I was obliged, by the badness of the roads, to stop and lodge at Mr. Norris's, where I found Col. Coats, who was to return early the next morning to town. I mentioned to him this circumstance, and desired he would be so kind as to inform Mr. Hudson, when he should see him, that I would receive that money from him at any time, whatever might happen. The colonel promised me, " that he would make it his business to see Mr. Hudson immediately on his return to town, and tell him what I said." He did so. Mr. Hudson was perfectly sat- isfied, and the next time I saw him, which was in the following spring, I received the money. I refer for proofs to witnesses, with whom I have no manner of connection.
So unexceptionable, so remarkable, and even zealous has been my conduct with respect to continental money, at that very moment too, when it was thought to be in the greatest danger. I persevered in this conduct, and have suffered ac- cordingly. Let the most patriotic among you bring before the public, an instance of such diligence to receive a large sum of continental money, at that time. Then, let him rail — but, till then, don't you think, gentlemen, he ought to be silent ?
Facts are commonly called stubborn things. So they are. My behaviour with regard to continental money, where my own interest was concerned, is the best comment on my advice to my brother about it. If I was so constant to the cause of America, in that gloomy period, as to be thus industrious and exemplary in receiving continental money, it must have been with a desire and design to support its credit, whatever my private losses might be by that constancy. Is it to be believed, then, that I would give any advice to my brother that could possibly injure its credit ?
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION. 4°9
1 I have now, gentlemen, laid before you an account of those actions, for which such torrents of reproaches have been poured upon me — Reproaches, not to be equalled but by those British and West Indian invectives, with which some years ago the press laboured against me, for having asserted and maintained your rights and liberties. The worth of the foreign articles has been long since settled ; and the value of the home-made manufactures is, I believe, by this time, as well ascertained.
I have called the late attacks upon me " unprovoked" and were they not entirely so ? What act of government have I done here or in the Delaware state, that can in the faintest manner countenance a notion that my present share of power will be dangerous or even injurious ? I defy all my enemies united to produce a single instance of this kind.
Which would you chuse, gentlemen, that the power I have, should be well used or ill used ? The former, to be sure. Then help me. Be my associates — I ask, I entreat your aid — I invite you to give me your advice freely and fully. You can do it, either personally, or by letter. The first will honour me. Either will oblige me. I shall receive it, not only cheerfully, but gratefully. Tell me, what I ought to do, and what to leave undone; and even delineate the most expedient manner of conducting affairs. The best way to promote the interest of the republic, is to prevent my errors ; not to arraign them when committed. Don't lie in ambush, to start out upon my frailties when they appear, to whoop and rejoice over them. That v/ould be a miserable amusement indeed ! unworthy the abil- ities and virtues of many among you — I am sensible of my own weakness, and shall be glad to avail myself of those abilities and those virtues, for preventing any disadvantage from it to you or my other fellow citizens.
I will only add upon this point— that, I am acting a very small and a very short part in the drama of human affairs. I wish to do right ; and to give satisfaction. The opinions of
' Freeman's Journal, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 1783.
4io APPENDIX.
men are fallible, and sometimes unjust. There is one supreme judge who cannot err; and when I endeavour, that my de- fects may not, for want of integrity, be displeasing in his sight, I would have you gentlemen, assuredly to know, that, not- withstanding my sincere desire to please you, I shall little trouble myself how your applauses or your censures are be- stowed.
Were not the attacks before mentioned " unprovoked" in another respect. Is there a man among you, whom I have offended by a disrespectful word or action ? Not one. Is there a man among you, but with whom, if known, I have an intercourse of civilities ? Not one. Is there a man among you, that I should not be glad to serve ? Not one. Are not such circumstances, in such times, tokens of a temper that detests quarrels ? And may not this conclusion be fairly deduced from them, that such a temper sincerely laments the neces- sity imposed of refuting, in proper and too much deserved language misrepresentations, however extravagant and dan- gerous.
More pleasing beyond comparison will be the employment to me, of applying all my thoughts and labours to promote, as much as I am able, the welfare of you and the rest of my fellow citizens. This testimony of my affection for you all I wish to give. I ardently desire that we may live together, under the true principles of society, equal liberty and impar- tial justice, happy, and generously contributing to render each other happy. Great are the advantages — glorious are the prospects of Pennsylvania, if this be our noble resolution : And this will be our resolution, if we have any wisdom, or any goodness.
The influences of these principles descend like the rains and dews of heaven upon the land, and spring forth in a vegetation of blessings, nourishing and cheering the bodies and souls of mortals — or glide thro' it like gentle rivers " visiting and making glad" our cities, fields, and woods. To these " living waters" poor and rich have by the patent of nature the same
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION. 4"
title. Let us strive to secure these gifts of our most bountiful creator, against the usual and dangerous invasions of ambition and avarice. Let us guard against those who are out of power and against those who are in power.
If there are men, who have such an eagerness for ruling, and at the same time such a left handed method of managing, that they cannot do even a good thing, but in a bad way — who think, that they are ruined, if they cannot ruin others — that authority is never well exercised, unless it be exercised by them — that worth is totally despised by their fellow citizens, unless their fellow citizens will tamely submit to be taxed up to a full satisfaction of the over-weening craving conceits which they formed of their own merits — these are men who would defeat the hopes of the innocent, and lay waste the labours of the diligent — these are men, who would lord it over the industrious farmers and ingenious tradesmen, the justly celebrated strength and ornament of our commonwealth, and yet would never think themselves enough paid for this lording — these are men, who would break the close, civil relationship between the mercantile interest and the other members of the community, and at an enlightened period, when almost all the rest of the human race are discovering with rapture, and solicit- ing with ardor, the mild and immense benefits of trade, now become of so much moment to the fate of empires, would check the most useful improvements of commerce, or give it laws that might as well be given to its winds and tides — these are men, who would distract everything, confound the ease, security and welfare of individuals, and pervert all the sacred ends of government to their own selfish ends. If there are such men, let us take care of them.
Let us also take care of every man in office, and keep watchful eyes upon him. We should be better served, if this vigilance was more general. Let his behaviour be publicly and privately canvassed. It is the tenure of his office ; but let this be done with decency, not so much for his sake, as for the sake of ourselves and of our country. Let us demonstrate
412 APPENDIX.
that we mean the common weal, and not the gratification of ill nature. The public is interested in its servants. They may be said to belong to the public. No virtues, no services should exempt them from such scrutinies. It is not only the right, it is the duty of the public to make them. Liberty has been so generally suppressed through the earth by a disuse of this right — by a neglect of this duty ; and those who have been guilty of the impious presumption and carelessness, have not only debased themselves, as perhaps they deserved, but have also betrayed their posterity. We have not yet arrived, it is true, at that eminence from which society so frequently de- scends with rapidity to the depths below. Therefore, such fatal effects may not be expected from our inattention. But we may be assured, that if we fall into it, we shall feel mischiefs sufficient to convince us, how stupid and criminal it is.
Five and twenty years ago, I began my walk of public busi- ness in Pennsylvania, with asserting and defending this inesti- mable maxim ; and for much the greatest part of those years have practised upon it, by a continued course of faithful and laborious service in the cause of American freedom. If my life has now reached its extremest verge, I cheerfully consent to take my last leave of my beloved countrymen, by solemnly repeating the guardian truth to them from that station, advan- tageous at least perhaps for this purpose, which they have been pleased to assign me.
Let us not credulously listen to tales of treachery against men, who have disinterestedly persevered in an opposition to our enemies. Such men must act from principle. The mis- erable condition of those who have already deserted us, is well known. Common sense, therefore, forbids the mad enterprise. Virtue forbids it more powerfully. The sovereignty of the United States, purchased by so much blood and so many calamities, has been acknowledged and fought for by other nations. Their honor, their safety, their prosperity, are all bound up in their independence. To renounce that, would be to renounce them all. It would be to renounce the esteem
DICKINSON'S VINDICATION. 413
and admiration of mankind — and to attain at once, by an uncommon vigour of folly and baseness, the singular distinc- tion of being equally despicable and detestable. It would sur- render the liberties of America prisoners at discretion to Great Britain, and would proscribe all aid and hope of aid from other kingdoms and states, in a future resistance against her op- pressors.
If any man could possibly be in a situation, that either by force or fraud he could have a chance of re-establishing the former domination over us, and should he be wicked enough to make the attempt, he must inevitably involve his country in greater misfortunes than she has yet experienced, himself in perpetual infamy in this world, and a just punishment in that to come. He would sin not only against the living, but, if it even can be done, against the dead also.
After the slaughter of so many patriots — After the deaths of a Warren — a x Montgomery — a Mercer — a Wooster — a Nash — a Harkemer — a de Kalb — and of a Hayne — whom the pe- culiar circumstances of his case — his own eminent worth — petitioning beauty and virtue — the streaming tears and humble heaven taught prayers of his helpless, half-orphan'd children, supplicating with artless agony, on their little, bended knees
for a fathers life could not save
After so many brave soldiers, fixed frozen together in cold churches — and so many daring seamen, melted into putrid masses, in the stifling " black holes" of prison ships, each of their honest, dying hearts, in these circles of misery, still true to his country's cause — After the countless massacres com- mitted on trembling old age, tender womanhood, and lisping
1 It is impossible for me to mention the death of this general, without recol- lecting that of my much esteemed friend major John Macpherson, slain at Quebec, at the same moment, if not by the same ball that bereaved America of her lamented Montgomery. This gallant young gentleman, in whom youth and pru- dence, gentleness and bravery were united, with all the promises of a great and useful character, being slightly wounded a day or two before he was killed, turned to his general, and said with a smile — " I hope, general, it will be remembered, that I lost some blood before the walls of Quebec."
4i4 APPENDIX.
infancy — and after1
to suffer subjection on any terms whatever to the authors of such woes, would ensure to America that certain earnest of every other wretchedness — their contempt. With great respect,
Gentlemen, I am,
Your very humble servant,
JOHN DICKINSON.
APPENDIX V I— (Page 222.)
FROM THE SPARKS MANUSCRIPTS IN HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY — DICKINSON'S DRAFT OF INSTRUCTIONS TO COMMISSIONERS, JULY 22, 1779. Endorsed. [Apparently not adopted.]
ENCLOSED you will receive a Commission appointing you Minister plenipotentiary for treating with Great Britain, to- gether with several resolutions of Congress on that subject.
This Treaty, we have reason to believe, will be managed under the Mediation of his most Catholic Majesty [King of Spain]. Immediately on the Receipt hereof, you are to apply to his most Christian Majesty [King of France], desiring, he will be pleased expressly to guaranty to these States the Exer- cise of the Right of fishing on the Banks of Newfoundland and other the fishing Banks and in the seas of North America, at a reasonable Distance to be ascertained in the guaranty, from the Coasts of the Territories that shall remain to Great Britain at the Conclusion of the War, preserving inviolate the treaties of Paris between his Majesty and these States.
You are to assign as Reason of this Request, the very great anxiety of the people of these States to have those fisheries assured to them more plainly than they appear to be by the Treaties above mentioned — the Dependance of many of them
1 Modesty and humanity would be too much wounded by compleating this catalogue of crimes. Journals of Congress, Vol. iii. page 145.
INSTRUCTIONS TO COMMISSIONERS. 4*5
thereon for their subsistance — the Difficulties to be appre- hended, if the Minds of the Inhabitants cannot be in some manner quieted on this point — the Confidence reposed in his Majesty's Magnanimity and in his Disposition to promote every Measure essentially necessary for the Happiness of these States.
Whatever may be the effect of this application you are to
******** declare, that you are ready to treat with Great Britain on her Directly Acknowledging in good Faith and Form the Liberty, Sovereignty and Independance absolute and unlimited of these States as well in matters of Government as of Commerce.
If this acknowledgement cannot by any Means be obtained, and you find it absolutely necessary to admit some mezzo-ter- mine, you may propose this mode of expression, that "the King of Great Britain agrees to treat with the people of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, as free and independant States whose Sovereignty is absolute and unlimited as well in Matters of Government as of Commerce ;" and from insisting on this Mode of Expres- sion you are in no Manner to recede, unless it be to admit some other more strong and positive in favor of the Freedom Sovereignty and Independance of these States.
If the Treaty proceeds on the former or on this footing, you are then to insist on the Form of Acknowledgement that shall be adopted being inserted in the Treaty, on the Limits of these States being ascertained according to the first of the inclosed Resolutions, an immediate evacuation of all places within those Limits by all the British land and naval Forces, the full Enjoy- ment thereof by these States, a Release of all Prisoners with- out Ransom and from these points you are in no Manner to recede. You may also insert such other articles as are usual in mere Treaties of peace, of which kind we will send you some precedents, if it shall be thought necessary.
You are to observe that you are not to propose the last
APPENDIX.
mentioned Mode of Expression, unless you are perfectly assured, that no treaty with Great Britain can be had but by admitting some such Mode, and unless the French and Span- ish Courts shall solemnly declare their sense of the treaty of Alliance in 1778 to be, that France is not thereby bound to contend for one more strong and positive in favor of these States — and France will not agree to contend for such an one — and unless you are convinced, that both those Courts will be highly disgusted by your refusing to admit some such Mode, as before mentioned.
In proceeding, you are to take especial Care not only that the powers of the British Minister, or Ministers are sufficiently full, but that the Credentials for treating with the States are done and expedited substantially in the manner usually prac- tised by Great Britain in treating with other Sovereign powers in Europe, and that nothing is contained therein derogating from or in any Manner denying the Freedom Sovereignty and Independance of these States absolute and unlimited as well in Matters of Government as of Commerce.
You are to endeavor by all means to procure the Treaty of peace to be signed and ratified by Great Britain, before you proceed to the treaty of Commerce. If the British Minister shall positively decline the former, unless the Terms of the latter be in some Degree previously determined, and this can- not be avoided, you are to declare, that immediately after the Treaty of Peace shall be signed, and ratified on the part of Great Britain you will sign a Treaty of Commerce on just and reasonable Terms.
If an Explanation of these words be urged, you may de- clare that you are not authorized to say anything more on the subject, till the treaty of peace shall be signed and ratified as aforesaid — that when that shall be done, the Respect due to the exalted Dignity and undoubted Equity of the mediating power, a Regard for the Honor of the United States, to- gether with the earnest Desire they feel of demonstrating to the whole world on this signal occasion that Moderation of
INSTRUCTIONS TO COMMISSIONERS. 4*7
Temper by which to be always distinguished, will forbid them to advance propositions inconsistent with the Sentiments im- pressed by the foregoing consideration, besides, that a proper attention to the well known advantages to be expected from the British Friendship and Commerce, would prevent them from insisting on any points that might justly cause an ob- struction to their receiving those advantages.
If the British Minister shall utterly refuse to sign the Treaty of peace and to procure its Ratification aforesaid without a further explanation of the Treaty of Commerce, you are with equal firmness to refuse such Explanation, and you may alledge, that the two Treaties are distinct in their nature — that the one is founded on the Maxims of Religion and Humanity and calculated for putting an end to the Effusion of Christian Blood and to the Calamities of War — the other founded on the Motive of Gain — that to refuse an assent to the first, unless the Measure of the latter be previously ascertained, would be to sacrifice the noblest principles of conduct to Views of a far inferior value — that the Method proposed by you is not unsup- ported by precedents — but to mention no more, that the Treaty of Commerce between Spain and the United provinces was not brought to a Conclusion till a considerable time after the Treaty of peace at Munster.
If the Explanation shall be still insisted on by Great Britain, and you find Reason to be convinced that the Treaty of peace will fail on your withholding it, you are to endeavor in the most prudent manner you can devise to discover the Conditions on which she will consent to a Treaty of Commerce, particu- larly, whether she will agree to insert an article in it, not to disturb the inhabitants of these States in the Exercise of the Fisheries on the Banks of Newfoundland and others the fish- ing Banks and in the Seas of North America, with a reciprocal one on the part of those States, limiting a reasonable Distance, if required by her, within which neither party shall in the Exercise of such Fisheries approach the Coasts of the other whether of the Continent or Islands.
4i 8 APPENDIX.
If you can be entirely assured, that Great Britain will agree to insert such an Article, then, you may proceed to an Expla- nation of the Terms on which you will sign a Treaty of Com- merce— the Basis thereof to be an Equality and Reciprocity of Benefits — preserving inviolate the Treaties of Paris in 1778 — and taking Care that the said Distance be so limited, as not to be less than about three Leagues, nor greater than about fifteen Leagues.
********
If the insertion of the article aforesaid cannot be obtained, you are then to propose this mode of Expression " that Com- merce shall in every Respect be restored to the same State in which it was before the War, excepting every Exclusion, Restriction and Regulation prior to the Treaty in preference of Great Britain to any other Nation now in or that hereafter shall be in amity with these States, or in any Manner or by any Construction implying a Dependance or Subordination of the States on or to Great Britain or the Crown thereof — and from this Mode of Expression you are in no manner to deviate unless it be to admit some other more strong and positive in favor of these States.
But you are to observe that you are not to propose this Mode of Expression unless the French and Spanish Courts shall solemnly declare their sense of the Treaty of Alliance in 1778 to be, that France is not thereby bound to contend for one more strong and positive in favor of these States — and France will not agree to contend for such an one — and unless you are convinced, that both those Courts will be offended by your refusing to admit some such Mode as is before men- tioned.
If this Mode or one more favorable to these States is ad- mitted, yet if it amounts not to the express stipulation afore- said, you are if possible to procure the Delivery to you of a Testimonial from the Mediating power, that the Exercise of the Right of these States to the said Fisheries was effectually allowed by Great Britain tho not expressly mentioned in the
INSTRUCTIONS TO COMMISSIONERS. 419
Treaty, the said States having declined at the Request of the Mediating power to insist on the insertion of the said Article.
You are however to understand that the insertion of such an article is not to be so far insisted on as in the manner before mentioned, except in the Case of a Refusal by France to enter into the guaranty aforesaid, for if she shall actually enter into the same, you are to endeavour earnestly to procure the inser- tion of such an article, but if you find your insisting upon it will break ofT the Treaty and displease the French and Span- ish Courts, you are to decline urging the motion.
If the Treaty of peace shall be signed — and ratified on the part of Great Britain in the Manner before mentioned without the suggestion of any Difficulty concerning Commerce, and you then proceed to that, you are to treat on the Basis afore- said.
Whenever in the Course of the Conference, the Fisheries shall be mentioned, you are to propose for avoiding Dispute, the insertion of the article aforesaid relating to them. If this proposition shall be objected to, you are in support of it, to alledge the Common Right to such Fisheries — the Right vested in these States by Occupancy and the necessity of procuring subsistance — and the right of Compensation for the Expenses and Damages of an unprovoked defensive war.
The arguments in support of the first and last of these topics, you may draw from the Principles of Justice and the Laws of Nature and Nations, as to the second, if it shall be said, that the Right vested in these States, by occupancy, was vested in the inhabitants as Subjects of the British Crown, you are to observe thereon — that these inhabitants were a part of the people of the Empire, and that on a just separation of the people, a partition of the Rights before exercised in Common, become also just, as attached to the persons of those then sep- arating and before the separation they exercising those Rights — otherwise, the first injustice in causing a separation would become foundation for and a sanction of a second Injustice—- which is a proposition operating too strongly against the
420 APPENDIX,
Universal Sense of Mankind to be supportable — that this argument is greatly fortified by the necessity of procuring sub- sistance, a necessity that is always growing more strait by the Encrease of Inhabitants — that this right is also strengthened by this Circumstance, that the Dominions in North America which may remain to Great Britain on a Pacification have been acquired or secured to her by the Exertions of these States as well as her own — that a Right they vested in them cannot be justly impaired in any Manner by the prosecution of such a War as that between Great Britain & them, or any separation thereby occasioned of the Members of the Empire — that a Right of Trading to the East Indes acquired only by occu- pancy and but for a short time and " flagrante Bello" between Spain and the United provinces, was confirmed toj:hese at the peace of Munster — a fortiori, should this Right so antient so established before the War, so continued and uninterrupted, be confirmed to these States.
You may also give up on behalf of these States any Trade to the East Indes and to Africa while they continue undis- turbed by Great Britain in the said Fisheries.
If Great Britain shall utterly refuse to treat of a perpetual peace, but shall offer to treat of a Truce, and the French and Spanish Courts shall solemnly declare their sense of the Treaty of Alliance in 1778 to be that France is not thereby bound to contend for a perpetual peace — if she will not agree to contend for it — and if you are fully assured, that the treating of and agreeing to a Truce cannot be denied or delayed by these States without highly offending those Courts, you are then to proceed to treat of a Truce, in treating of which, you are to conduct yourself in the Manner herein before pointed out for treating of a perpetual Peace — to use all the means in your power to procure as long a Truce as can be obtained — and as great security as will be agreed to against any consid- erable land or naval Forces being kept by Great Britain in the Dominions that may remain to her in North America, at the Conclusion of the War — on which Heads you are to regulate
AUTHORSHIP OF VALERIUS. 42 1
Yourself by the necessity you shall find imposed upon you of conforming to the Sentiments of their most Christian and most Catholic Majesties.
In the Course of the Negotiations you are not to omit any opportunity of sending to Congress the earliest advices of every step taken therein, and of every Difficulty that occurs, so as to enable Congress to judge in the most full and ample Manner of all the proceedings. In sending these advices, you will use every precaution to prevent your Dispatches falling into the Hands of the enemy, and you will also send so many Copies of each Letter as to remove every probability of our failing to receive the Intelligence designed for us.
JOHN DICKINSON.
July 22, 1779.
The substance of these papers was delivered by me to Con- gress on Saturday the i/th of July, 1779, after Congress had postponed the Resolution then under Consideration.
APPENDIX V I I .— (Page 161.)
LETTERS OF VALERIUS AND GENERAL ARMSTRONG.
[IT seems that there can be at this date no reason for not printing that portion of Mrs. Deborah Logan's diary which shows that the family tradition is that General Armstrong (Secretary of War in 1814) was VALERIUS. It must be borne in mind, however, that Armstrong was secretary of the Council before Mr. Dickinson was elected President.]
August 25th 1814. Our country is now actually invaded, yesterday's southern mail brought advices that a large British force commanded by Sir Thomas Picton, who has just served in Spain with great reputation, (this was the report, but General Ross commanded) is within thirteen miles of Washington.
422 APPENDIX.
The President and heads of the departments doubtless are gone off, and the Government dispersed and disgraced.
26th — The alarm increases, Philadelphia is in great agita- tion, the militia organizing, and troops marching to their ren- dezvouses— it is now pretty certain that the Public buildings and navy yard at Washington are destroyed, and some reports say, the city also ; the whole of that part of the country is in the utmost consternation, nobody here knows what has become of the President, nor do they seem to care, he is spoken of without respect and as the author of these needless calamities.
3Oth — Every new account that we receive from the seat of war appears fraught with yet untold disgrace — Philadelphia is greatly agitated and has been so since the first accounts of the landing of the British force. — The most zealous democrats give up the President and his heads of departments as wholly inade- quate to the direction of Public affairs in this crisis, which their folly and wickedness have brought upon us. The banks too, refusing to part with their silver, have added to the confusion.
Walsh drank tea with me to day, and told me amongst other news that Admiral Cockbourn went to the Palace with a card in his hand and asked for Mrs. Madison, saying at the same time if she was there, that the palace and all its contents should be safe. — The President was on horseback and had General Mason and abundance of others to escort him, but was shaking with fear — nothing was done as it ought to have been done, the best troops had but 9 rounds of cartridges and after using them had to retreat without any rallying point, or any system at all. The President is represented as deeply mortified, repenting of the confidence he has placed in Armstrong, who, it is now said has resigned.
3 1st — Nothing very new today, but fuller accounts of the disasters at Washington, every one appearing to wish to shift the blame on those public characters most obnoxious to their party. Poor General Winder and the Secretary of War (most justly) will perhaps be the political scapegoats, on this shame- ful occasion.
AUTHORSHIP OF VALERIUS. 4*3
I find many of the reports are unfounded which we have heard of the late events — many are distorted, and some untrue — It is not worth while to write one day what one must correct or contradict the next, but what I have here set down may at least serve as a memento of the alarm and confusion which this disgraceful affair has occasioned. And here let me men- tion an anecdote of Armstrong, given on the best authority, as true. He has always displayed a love of intrigue, a dereliction of principle, and a baseness of deceit, which should draw on him the scorn of every honest mind, from his first appearance in public life until this time. He read law, when a young man, under my honoured cousin John Dickinson, and had received from him polite and kind attentions, and when John Dickinson was President of Pennsylvania, under the first revolutionary constitution, Armstrong, applied for the office of Secretary which was granted to him, and he was of course much in J. Dickinson's family, receiving daily proofs of his confidence and friendship, yet at this period he was actually the writer of all those ill-natured and detestable paragraphs in some of the public prints which wounded the mind of his patron but too sensibly, and perhaps caused him to leave a state which he thought ungrateful to him for his best services.
Armstrong has, since the affair at Washington resigned, indignant, as it should seem, and has published a letter on the occasion, in which " more is meant than meets the ear." How will what he says of the President coming to his lodgings, to sound him about giving up part of his authority as Secretary of War, sound, in the ears of Europeans ? —
He has however now retired, and I hope his ability to do mischief is curtailed effectually — The public voice has been much against him —
D. L.
424 APPENDIX.
APPENDIX VIII.
DRAFT OF AN ACT FOR THE GRADUAL ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN DELAWARE.
(From the original in the handwriting of John Dickinson in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania^)
§ I. For the gradual abolition of Slavery Be it enacted and it is hereby enacted &c. That no negro, Mulatto or other Person, who shall be born within this State after the passing of this act shall be a slave or servant for life ; and that all Slavery or servitude for life, in cases of children who shall be hereafter born within this .State shall be and the same is hereby extinguished and forever abolished.
§ 2. Provided always nevertheless That every Negro and Mulatto who shall hereafter be born within this State, and who would if this act had not been made, have been a Slave or ser- vant for life, shall be the servant of such Person as would in such case have been entitled to the service of such child, until he or she shall attain the age of years, in the like manner
and on the same conditions as servants bound by Indenture for term of years are or may be holden, and shall be liable to like correction and punishment and entitled to the like relief for any ill treatment from his or her Master, Mistress, or any other Person and to the like freedom dues and other priviledges in all respects, unless the master or mistress of any such child shall abandon his or her claim to the same, in which case it shall and may be lawful for the overseers of the Poor of the Hundred or county where such child shall be abandoned as afsd, to bind out the same by Indenture as an apprentice to learn some useful art, trade, mistery or calling until he or she shall attain an age not exceeding years.
§ 3. And be it further enacted by the authority afsd That the
ABOLITION OF SLA VERY IN DEL A WARE. 425
owner of every child born after the passing of this act who would by virtue hereof be liable to serve until the age of years shall within six months after the birth of such child, deliver or cause to be delivered in writing to the Clerk of the Peace of the County in which he or she shall reside, the name, sirname and occupation or profession of such owner and of the hundred and county in which he or she resides and also the age (to the best of his or her knowledge) name and sex of every such child and in default thereof every such child shall immediately from and after the expiration of the said Term of six months be free.
§ 4. And be it further enacted by the authority afsd that the owner of every Negro or Mulatto Slave or Servant for life or till the age of years now within this State or his lawful attorney shall on or before the
deliver or cause to be delivered in writing to the Clerk of the Peace of the County in which he or she shall respectively inhabit the name Sirname and occupation or profession of such owner and the name of the County and hundred in which he or she resideth and also the name, age and Sex of every such Slave or Servant for life or until the age of years ; and all the returns or accounts in writing in and by this act required to be made as afsd shall be verified by the Person making the same to the best of his or her knowledge and belief on his or her oath or affirmation administered by the said Clerks respec- tively who shall in books for that purpose to be provided make and preserve records thereof, copies of which records certified by the said Clerks respectively or by their Successors in office under the Seal of office shall be good Evidence in all Courts and elsewhere ; for which oath or affirmation and entry the said Clerks respectively shall be entitled to and the like
sum for every copy thereof certified as afsd to be paid by the party making such return or demanding such copy, and no negro or Mulatto Slave or Servant for life or until the age of years now within this State whose name shall not be entered in the manner by this act required on or before the
426 APPENDIX.
said shall from and after that time be
a Slave or Servant for life or until the age of years except such Negro and Mulatto Slaves or Servants as are herein after excepted but shall be wholly free and discharged from all further service — A
§ 5. And be it further enacted by the authority afsd That no Man or Woman of any Nation or Colour except the negroes and Mulattos who shall be registered as afsd shall be deemed adjudged or holden within this State as Slaves or Servants for life or (except such as are or shall be bound by Indenture to serve for any Term or time not exceeding the age of years) for any term of years and except also the domestic Slaves attending upon Delegates in Congress from other States, on Persons from such States having business to transact with Congress, on foreign Ministers or Consuls or on Persons pass- ing through this State and not becoming residents thereof and Seamen employed in Ships not belonging in whole or in part to any Inhabitant of this State ; Provided such domestic Slaves be not aliened or sold to any Inhabitant of this State or other Person nor (except in the case of Members of Congress, Per- sons from other States having Business to transact with Con- gress, foreign Ministers and Consuls) retained in this State longer than six months.
§ 6. Provided nevertheless That neither this act nor any thing in it contained shall give relief or shelter to any runaway Negro Slave or Servant from any Master or Mistress residing in any other State or Country but such Master or Mistress shall have like right and aid to demand claim and take such Slave or Servant as he or she might have had if this Act had
A — Provided nevertheless That no Person in whom the ownership or right to the Service of any Negro or Mulatto of the age of fifty years or upwards at the time of passing this act is vested his her or their heirs Executors administrators or assignes shall be exempted by any thing herein contained from being liable to indemnify the county or Hundred in which any such negro or mulatto may be- come chargeable against the Burthen and expense thereof altho' such negro or mulatto shall not have been registered as is herein before directed. [Marginal note in the original.]
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN DELAWARE. W
not been made and that all Negro and Mulatto Slaves and Servants until the age of years now owned and heretofore resident in this State who have absented themselves or been wrongfully carried away or employed as Seamen abroad and who have not returned or been brought back to their owners before the passing of this act may at any time within six months after they shall respectively return or be brought back as afsd be registered in manner afsd on producing such slave or servant before any two Justices of the Peace of the proper County and on satisfying them by due proof of the former Residence absconding, taking away or absence as afsd of such Slave or Servant and on an order for that purpose being had and obtained from the sd Justices.
§ 7. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid that no Negro or Mulatto Slave or Servant for Term of Years (except those belonging to Members of Congress from other States, to persons from such States having Business to transact with Congress to foreign Ministers and Consuls and to persons passing through the State and not becoming residents thereof shall be removed out of this State with the Design or Inten- tion that the place of abode or Residence of such Slave or Servant shall be altered or changed, or with the Design or Intention that such Slave or Servant (if a Female and preg- nant) shall be detained out of this State until her Delivery of the child of which she is or shall be pregnant or with the Design that such Slave or Servant shall be brought again into this State after the expiration of six months from the time of his or her having been first brought into this State, without his or her con- sent, if of full age, testified on a private Examination before two Justices of the Peace of the County in which he or she shall reside or if under the age of twenty one years without his or her Consent testified in manner afsd and also without the Con- sent of his or her parents or Guardians testified in manner afsd whereof the sd Justices shall make a Record and deliver to the sd Slave or Servant a copy thereof containing the name, age, Term of Servitude and Place of abode of such Slave or Servant,
428 APPENDIX.
the reason of such removal and the Place to which he or she is about to go ; and if any Person shall sell and dispose of any such Slave or Servant to any Person out of this State or whose usual and settled Place of Residence is not within it, or who is or shall be known to be about to remove therefrom ; or shall send or carry or cause to be sent or carried any such Slave or Servant out of this State for any of the purposes afsd without having obtained such consent as is by this Act required testi- fied as afsd he she or they so offending and his her or their Aiders and Abetters shall severally forfit and pay for every such offence the sum of £i$o to be recovered in any Court of Record by Action of Debt Bill Case or information at the Suit of any Person or Persons who shall sue for the same one Moiety thereof for the Use of the Plaintiff or Informer and the other Moiety thereof for the use of this Commonwealth, and in all such Cases every such Slave or Servant shall imme- diately be free.
§ 8. And in order that this Act may not be evaded by intro- ducing into this State Negroes and Mulattoes, bound by Cov- enant to serve for long and unreasonable Terms of years. Be it further enacted by the Authority afsd that no Covenant or other Contract of Personal Servitude or Apprentiship shall be valid or binding on any Negro or Mulatto for any longer time than seven years unless such Servant or Apprentice were at the Commencement of such Servitude or Apprentiship under the age of twenty years in which Case such Negro or Mulatto may be holden as a Servant or Apprentice respectively accord- ing to the Covenant as the Case shall be until he or she shall attain the age of years and no longer.
§ 9. And be it further enacted by the Authority afsd that if any Person or Persons shall build fit equip victual man or otherwise prepare any Ship or Vessel within any Port or place of this State or shall cause or procure any Ship or other Vessel to sail from any such Port or place for the Purpose of carrying on a Trade or Traffic in Slaves to from or between Europe Asia Africa or America or any Places or Countries whatever
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN DELAWARE. 429
or of transporting Slaves to or from one Port or Place to another in any Part or Parts of the world such Ship or Vessel her Tackle furniture apparel and other appurtenances shall be forfeited one Moiety thereof for the Use of the Commonwealth and the other Moiety for the Use of the Informer and shall be liable to be seized and prosecuted by any officer or other Person by Information in Rem in any Court of Record within this State whereupon such Proceedings shall be had as to right and Justice shall appertain according to the true Intent and Meaning of this Act and agreeably to the Constitution and Laws of this State and moreover all and every Person and Persons so building fitting out manning equipping victualling or otherwise preparing sending away or employing on his own Account or that of others any such Ship or Vessel knowing or intending that the same shall be employed in such Trade or Business or who shall in any wise be aiding or abetting therein shall severally forfeit and pay the Sum of one thousand pounds one Moiety thereof to the Use of the State and the other Moiety to the use of him or her or who will sue for the same to be recovered with Costs of Suit by Bill, Plaint or Information.
§ 10. And be it further enacted by the Authority afsd that if any Person or Persons shall by force or violence take or carry or cause to be taken or carried or shall by fraud or stratagem seduce or cause to be seduced any free Negro or Mulatto from any Part or Parts of this State to any other Place within the same or elsewhere with the Design or Intention of selling or disposing or of causing to be sold or disposed or of keeping or detaining or of causing to be kept or detained such Negro or Mulatto as a Slave or Servant for Term of Years every such Person or Persons so offending their Aiders and Abettors shall on conviction thereof in any Court of Quarter Sessions within this State severally forfeit and pay the Sum of one hun- dred Pounds to the Overseers of the Poor of the City or County from which such Negro or Mulatto shall have been taken or seduced as afsd and shall also be confined at hard Labor for
430 APPENDIX.
any time not less than six months nor more than years
and until the Costs of Prosecution shall be paid.
§ II. And in order to prevent the separating of Husbands and Wives and of Parents and Children so far as may be done without Prejudice to the Owners thereof Be it enacted by the authority afsd that if any owner or Possessor of any Negro or Mulatto Slave or Servant shall from and after the passing of this Act separate or remove or cause to be separated or re- moved a Husband from his Wife, a Wife from her Husband a Parent from a Child or a Child from a Parent of any or either of the Descriptions afsd to a greater distance than ten Miles with the Design or Intention of changing the Habitation or Place of abode of such Husband, Parent or Child unless such Child be above the Age of four years or unless the Consent of such Slave or Servant shall have been obtained and testified in Manner afsd such Person or Persons shall severally forfeit and pay the Sum of fifty Pounds for every such offence to be re- covered with Costs of suit by Action of Debt Bill Plaint or Information in any Court of Record at the Suit of any Person who will sue for the same.
§ 12. And be it further enacted by the Authority afsd that where any Master or Mistress hath manumitted or set free or hereafter shall manumit or set free any Negro or Mulatto then being under the age of years and in no ways cripled or
rendered incapable of getting a living without giving Security to indemnify the County every such Negro and Mulatto shall be and is hereby declared to be free as fully and amply as if such Security had been given.
§ 13. And be it further enacted by the Authority afsd that the Crimes and Offences of Negroes and Mulattoes as well Slaves and Servants as freemen shall be enquired off adjudged cor- rected and punished in like manner as the offences and crimes of other Inhabitants of this State are and shall be and not otherwise except that a Slave shall not be admitted to bear witness against a Freeman.
§ 14. And be it further enacted by the Authority afsd that in
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN DELAWARE. 43 1
all Cases where Sentence of Death shall be pronounced against a Slave the Jury by whom he or she shall be tried shall ap- praise and declare the Value of such Slave and if such Sen- tence shall be executed the Court shall make an Order on the State Treasurer payable to the Owner for the Amount of such appraised value.
§ 15. And be it further enacted by the Authority afsd that the Reward for taking up runaway and absconding Negro and Mulatto Slaves and Servants and the Penalties for enticing away dealing with or harbouring concealing or employing Negro or Mulatto Slaves and Servants shall be the Same and be recovered in like Manner as in the Case of white Servants.
I suppose a clause repealing former Laws respecting Negroes and Mulattos should be added but I am not sufficiently ac- quainted with the Laws of Delaware to be able say whether all such Acts should be repealed or only particular ones by Name.
INDEX.
Adams, John, as a lawyer, 33.
and popular government, 113. opposes conciliation, 158. and Dickinson quarrel, 159. resolutions of May 10-15, '
179. Adams, Samuel, as a lawyer, 34.
his opinion of the Quakers, 103. and Dickinson, 107. Allegiance, nature of, according to
Dickinson, 164. Allen, James, account of the Assembly
of 1776, 207. Allison, Dr., his reputation as a Latin
scholar, 16.
Armed resistance, obstacles to, 121. Assembly, Supply and Military Bills of
1764, 55- petitions the king to resume the
government of the province,
56.
petition to the king in 1764, 60. elects delegates to Congress, 118. of 1775, character of its members,
167. struggles to preserve the charter in
1776, 177.
of 1776 makes concessions, 179. left without a quorum, June, 1776,
189.
Basis of instruction in the Inns of Court, the English common law, 24.
Binney, Horace, his opinion of the treatment of her great men by Phila- delphia, 338.
Boston, port closed, 97.
28
Boston, message to Philadelphia in *774> 105.
Charter privileges, 48.
strong atachment to its provisions
in 1776, 169. efforts to preserve it, 170.
Circular letter of Massachusetts, 94.
City Tavern, meeting at, 107.
Clergy, the, not lawyers, leaders in New England, 29, 30.
College of Philadelphia loses its endow- ments, 225.
Colleges in Colonial days, 16.
Colonial system, 88.
Common-law training, English and American students, 26.
Confederation, Articles of, drafted by Dickinson, necessity for their re- vision, 253.
Congress of 1774, measures adopted by,
137- favors conciliation in May, 1776,
172. Consistency of Dickinson's views when
the Declaration was adopted, 198. Constitutional resistance, 90. Constitutionalists (State) in Pennsyl- vania, 185.
Continental line, address of officers, 227. Contributions to various charities, 328. Controversies after the Constitution was
adopted, Dickinson's share in, 276. Convention called in Pennsylvania, 185. at Annapolis, recommendations of,
256.
Correspondence with Jefferson, 290. Crosia-dor6, 12.
433
434
INDEX.
Debates in Constitutional Convention
secret, 264. Delegates to Congress in 1774, sketch
of, 119. from Massachusetts, reputation,
130. reception of, in Philadelphia in
1774, 132.
Democrats, different schools of, 282. Dickinson College at Carlisle, 326. Dickinson family, 9. DICKINSON, JOHN, when born, and who
were his parents, 13, 14. great proficiency in his studies,
18.
his fellow-students, 19. studies law with John Moland, of
Philadelphia, 19. enters the Middle Temple as a
student of law in 1753, 21. and Samuel Adams contrasted, 35. his first efforts at the bar, 36. member of the Assembly in 1762,
38. opposes the petition to the king
asking that he would resume the
government, 60. his speech, 61. views of the Sugar Act and Stamp
Act, 67, 68.
views of the nature of parliamen- tary taxation, 70-74. reputation acquired by the Farm- er's Letters, 92.
becomes unpopular in Boston, 100. views about paying for the tea, 106. and the historical school, 114. a member of Congress of 1774, 140. drafts petition to king and address
to the people of Canada, 142. drafts declaration of causes of
taking up arms, July, 1775, 161. active in raising troops, 163. colonel of First Battalion of Asso-
ciators, 175.
DICKINSON, JOHN, his course in the Continental Congress, 190.
prepares draft of Articles of Con- federation and treaties, July, 1776, 191.
supposed speech on the Declara- tion, 193.
opposes the Declaration as inop- portune, 193-196.
letter to Mercy Warren, 195.
his services during the Jersey cam- paign, 205.
not re-elected as a delegate to Con- gress, 206.
resigns his commission in the army, 206.
member of the first Assembly under the Constitution, 207.
withdraws from public service, 209.
retires to Delaware, 212.
a private in the Delaware militia, 213.
appointed brigadier-general, 214.
serves in the battle of the Brandy- wine, 214.
sent as a delegate to Congress by Delaware in 1779, 217.
attacked by Valerius, 230.
character and defence, 237-240.
as an admiralty judge, 252.
at convention at Annapolis, 256.
at convention at Philadelphia, 258. sketch of its work, 258-260.
drafts the original Articles of Con- federation, 258.
proposes election of senators by the Legislatures of the States, 260.
views on various provisions of the proposed Constitution of the United States, 260.
retires from public life, 278.
on Federal " delusions," 285.
peculiar democracy, 290.
marriage, 316.
INDEX.
435
DICKINSON, JOHN, dislike of publicit3
at weddings, 317. founds a prize at Princeton College
325-
his declining years, 332. kindness to the family of Judg<
Read, 333. portrait of, by Mr. Read and Mrs
Logan, 335. his death, 336.
vindication of his career, Appen- dix V. and VIII. Disputes between the Proprietary family and the people, causes of, 39-45.
Education, provincial, 16.
" Fabius" and the " Federalist" on the
Constitution, 268. historical illustrations, 270-272. opinion of Washington on, 274. second series, 296. Fair Hill described by Mrs. Logan,
3"-
Fair Hill and Sepviva estates conveyed to the male heirs of the Norris family, 33*.
Farmer's Letters, 79. Franklin and Dickinson, 41. their influence, 81. argument, 84.
Franklin's position in Pennsylvania be- fore the Revolution, 42. French alliance and Spanish mediation,
219.
Revolution, effect on parties here, 28.
Galloway, resolutions of 1764, 58.
proposal of federation, 136. Germans in Pennsylvania, 46. Gerry, Elbridge, letter about destroy- ing the charter, 72. opposes revision of the Articles of Confederation, 264.
Indian war in Pennsylvania, 53, 54. Inns of Court, sketch of, 22. Instructions to delegates rescinded, 188.
Jav» John, his attitude towards inde- pendence, 197.
president of Congress in 1779, 2'7'
commissioner to Spain, 217. Jay's treaty, 294. Jefferson and Dickinson, 298. Jefferson's dread of centralization, 284.
influence, 284.
theory of government, 289.
letter concerning Mr. Dickinson's death, 336.
Killen, William, private tutor of Dick- inson, 18.
Legal principles and natural equity, 31. Letter to McKean, 295. Letters to Dr. Logan, 292. Logan, William, letter concerning his marriage, 317.
Martial law, 224.
McKean, Thomas, member of Stamp
Act Congress, 72. member of Continental Congress,
121.
letters to, 286. Mercer, General Hugh, his command
at Elizabethtown, 205. Ministry obdurate, 86. Moland, John, Dickinson's preceptor in
the law, 19.
England, union in, 127. delegates, reception in Philadel-
phia, 1774, 132. efforts to destroy the charter,
171.
^on-conformists, II. Morris family, the, 309.
436
INDEX.
Norris, Isaac, the elder, 308. Isaac, the Speaker, 309.
Opposition to the Constitution, various
forms of, 266. Otis, James, as a lawyer, 33.
Parliamentary taxation, different views
in different parts of the country, 77. Pennsylvania, condition of, in 1739, 45. controversy with the Penn family,
45-52. sketch of the history of, prior to
1755. 45-52. taxation, paper money, and militia,
50-55-
Convention of July, 1774, no. Convention, instructions to the As- sembly, 112. ratifies the acts of Congress of 1774,
149.
second Provincial Convention, 150. military force raised, 152.
nature of, 154. " the Associators," 153-156. Assembly of 1775, instructions to
delegates to Congress, 165. anarchical condition of, in 1783,
224-226. organization of the government,
228. revolt of the troops at Lancaster,
Dickinson's account of the same,
246. Petition to the king (first), authorship
of Dickinson disputed, 143. Petition to the king, July, 1775, 157. Philadelphia students at the Inns of
Court, 28. nature of resistance to the ministry,
109. advises Boston to pay for the tea
destroyed, 109. society in 1774, 133.
Pennsylvania Associators under Dick- inson's command in the Jersey cam- paign, 204.
Political libels common, 232.
Pontiac's war, 53.
Proprietaries, deep discontent with their government, 56.
Proprietary government in Pennsylva- nia, nature of, 39. estate, 42.
Puritans and Quakers, 124.
Quaker resistance, how manifested, 126. Quakers, the king petitioned in 1755
to render them ineligible for the
Assembly, 44, 52. their relations to the revolutionary
movement, 115.
Races in Pennsylvania, 46. Ratification of the Constitution uncer- tain, 265. Reed, Joseph, 105, 106-108.
his administration as President of
Pennsylvania, 224-226. Relations of religion and learning,
330. Removal from Virginia to Maryland,
12.
Revolt of troops at Lancaster, 244. Revolutionary spirit in Pennsylvania,
181.
Roberdeau, Brigadier-General, 205. Rodney, Caesar, President of Delaware,
214.
Roman law and the common law, 25. Rush, Dr., a violent partisan, but a friend
of Dickinson, 21 1, 278.
Scotch-Irish settlers, characteristics of,
44. Slavery in Delaware, 323.
in the new Territories, 324. Smith, Dr., the provost, 15.
INDEX.
437
Smith, Dr., John Adams's opinion of,
1 08.
writes the letter to Boston, 108. Soldiers refuse to obey the Assembly,
181.
Spain offers mediation, 221. Stamp Act Congress, 71.
Act repealed, 74. State sovereignty, controversy about,
276.
Suffolk resolutions, 138. Sugar Act and the proposed Stamp Act, 67.
Thomson, Charles, his account of Dick- inson's attitude during the Revolu- tion, Appendix II.
Tilghman, Edward, account of the meeting at the City Tavern, 107.
Tilghman, Edward, letters to his father about the intrigues of the New Eng- land Congressmen, 174.
Troops sent to Boston, 96.
Valerius and libels of that day, charges
made, 236.
Views change in regard to France, 301. Virginia recommends independence,
187.
Wharton, Thomas, letters, 115. Wilson, James, in Congress, January,
1776, 171. Wyoming troubles, 247.
THE END.
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